


Avenger's Apprentice

by moremarvl_plz (DawnRain_776)



Series: Avenger's Apprentice [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Agent, Agent Melevna, Alien Invasion, Aliens, Avengers - Freeform, Avengers Family, Battle of New York, Black Widow - Freeform, Bruce Banner - Freeform, Capsicle, Captain America - Freeform, Crazy Russian Scientist, Hawkeye - Freeform, Hulk - Freeform, Hydra, I twisted the plot just a bit, Iron Man - Freeform, Loki - Freeform, Loki's scepter, NYC, Natasha Romanoff mentor, New York, New York City, Other, SHIELD, Spangles, Stark Tower, Thor - Freeform, avengers movie - Freeform, clint barton - Freeform, it's always Russia or Hydra, level 1 SHIELD, minor torture, mother figure, nat - Freeform, natasha romanoff mother figure, new avenger, no one's worrying about that, ok, our beautiful black widow, steve rogers - Freeform, tony stark - Freeform, wormhole in the sky above NYC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2019-10-08 01:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 21,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17377340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnRain_776/pseuds/moremarvl_plz
Summary: I’m Alex.  It’s short for Alexandra Melevna, but I don’t like that name.  I’m just your average, run-of-the-mill street ruffian, roaming NYC.  Housed at the orphanage, parents dead.  I don’t know who they were.  No one does.  Once I tried to sneak into Mr. Martinez’s office to find my file, but he caught me and locked me in my room for a week.





	1. Alex

I’m Alex. It’s short for Alexandra Melevna, but I don’t like that name. I’m just your average, run-of-the-mill street ruffian, roaming NYC. Housed at the orphanage, parents dead. I don’t know who they were. No one does. Once I tried to sneak into Mr. Martinez’s office to find my file, but he caught me and locked me in my room for a week.  
I don’t like graffiti walls or anything, but I do sometimes pick people’s pockets. I don’t find much, but my fingers are so quick that no one every notices me. It had gotten me a minor criminal record, but I hacked into the NYPD’s database and deleted it. No one ever noticed, and I didn’t get caught again. It took me a whole two hours to get in there, for goodness sake, I wasn’t going to waste my own time again.  
“Alexandra!” Mr. Martinez barks up the stairs.  
I roll my eyes and shut my computer. It’s pretty old, but I save up money for an entire year to buy it from the pawn shop across the street. And there’s no wifi in the orphanage, but I rigged up a wifi box to run on the free wifi from the Starbucks down the street. It was pretty easy to hack the system and extend the range. No one puts up any firewalls these days.  
“What,” I ask, thumping down the stairs.  
“You’re going to the bank,” he says, handing me a manila folder.  
I flop down, sitting on the last step, “But I went last time. I thought it was Darcy’s turn!”  
“Darcy is taking care of Michael and Andrew.”  
“Ugh, you always make me go to the bank,” I whine.  
“Just go,” Mr. Martinez doesn’t even try to argue with me.  
I roll my eyes again and walk out the door. As usual, New York City is busy at this time of day. I stop at a vendor selling hotdogs and fries in the street and order one of each with the money I snatched from Mr. Martinez’s pocket.  
The bank is a couple blocks away, but I enjoy the walk. It’s fun, eating a greasy hotdog and fries purchased with my negligent caretaker’s money, getting grease stains all over the folder. I even drop it in the gutter once, which was totally an accident.  
I walk up  
Suddenly, I hear a boom and look up to see a ray of blue light pierce the sky. A big space opens up, and a giant ship appears.  
Someone screamed nearby, and people started running as more ships appeared and descend on the city.  
I freeze as a giant ship appears. Frankly, I think it looks like a mutant metal turtle-snake. And it starts spitting out evil aliens in armor.  
Now, any normal person would scream and run, or hide in a trash can, but I look around for something. Crap, I dropped the folder.  
Oh well, it’s gone now.  
I look up to see Iron Man appear, in his suit. Wow, that dude’s got style. He shoots at a couple aliens on the rooftops before disappearing down 5th avenue.  
But I can see the monster ship coming closer, shooting out aliens as it comes. And then I think about is the kids at the orphanage. I have to help them escape.  
I take off, running back the way I came. I have to get to the orphanage and help the kids.  
I hear a roar behind me, and turn to see one of the aliens leap. I duck and roll out of the way.  
With a bang, the monster falls. Behind me is a NYPD officer, bravely shooting at the monsters. At least those stick-in-the-muds are good for something. He runs up to me.  
“Here,” the NYPD officer hands me the gun from his belt, “Take this and go. Don’t hesitate to shoot at any of these monsters in your way.”  
“Thanks,” I say breathlessly.  
The officer nods and runs off down an alley.  
I can hear the kids screaming up ahead. Mr. Martinez and Darcy are herding them through the streets, but it’s a battleground of stopped cars and fallen monsters.  
“Look out!” I shout, as a monster jumps from above. I cock the gun and shoot, and the monster falls.  
“There’s more coming,” I say, “We have to get out of here.”  
“Did you get my folder to the bank,” Mr. Martinez asks.  
I glare at him, “No, I was a little preoccupied by the giant alien ships coming from the hole in the sky.”  
I turn and shoot at more of the monster coming down the street as Darcy herds the kids down the street. But there are so many, and they’re getting closer.  
Suddenly, I hear a whirring sound, and a big shield flies out of nowhere. A big, spangled, red, white, and blue shield. And following it is a man in a red, white, and blue suit. Captain America.  
The shield hits a couple aliens and flies back to its owner. He looks over at me incredulously.  
“Who are you?”  
“Oh, I’m Iron Man,” I say sarcastically, shooting at another alien.  
“You’re a little young to be on the police force,” the Cap says, ignoring my comment.  
“I’m not on the police force. I’m just your average, run-of-the-mill-“  
Another figure drops from above, “Who’s this?”  
Captain America flings his shield again, and I shoot, “A civilian.”  
“Where do you guys come from?” I ask, checking the magazine. I’m almost out of bullets.  
“A civilian in the line of fire?” It’s Black Widow. Of course, it’s a super spy working for SHIELD. “We need to get her out of here.”  
“I’m a little busy at the moment,” Cap says, kicking an alien out of the way.  
“I’m fine right here,” I run back as the aliens advance, hiding behind a car. “Listen Cap, Black Widow, I’ll just stay right here until this gun runs out.”  
The aliens were almost on top of us, I listened to Cap speaking in his earpiece, “So, how about Banner?”  
Cap kicked an alien away from his car, “What?”  
“For a nickname. You know, like Star Spangled Banner,” I duck under an alien blast.  
“Geez, this girl sounds like Stark,” Black Widow grunts as she leveled her shotgun.  
Cap laughs.  
Suddenly, I hear a click as I go to shoot again.  
“Oh shit,” I check the magazine again, “All my bullets are gone.”  
“Okay, now you can run away and join all the other civilians in fleeing New York City,” Black Widow says.  
But, I’m already running towards the monsters. First, I throw my gun at one, which doesn’t really do much. Then I grab a death ray staff from one of the dead aliens and duck as a living one pounces. As well as seven-foot-tall aliens in armor can pounce.  
“Hold on one second, dumb aliens,” I shout as I level the staff, “I need to figure out how this works.”  
I push a button and a ray of blue light comes out of the end, narrowly missing Black Widow and frying several aliens.  
“Watch it!” she shouts, kicking an alien.  
“Sorry Weasley!” I shout. It’s a fun nickname.  
“Please don’t.”  
I race back over to Cap (for lack of a better nickname) and Weasley, randomly blasting aliens.  
“Such a fun toy,” I tell Cap, leaping up onto his car.  
“Watch out!” he says.  
I fry some more aliens, “In a minute. Also, how about I call you Spangles.”  
Cap stops for a moment to press his earpiece, “Stark, could you get over to 6th Avenue, there’s a civilian giving us some trouble down here. Also, no.”  
“I am not giving you trouble, I’m simply helping hold off these aliens. By the way, how did this happen in the first place?” I duck under Cap’s shield as he swings it, “Caperoo.”  
“I’m not a kangaroo.”  
Black Widow jumps over to the car that Cap and I are standing on, “You’re not classified to know.”  
I chuckle, before drop kicking an alien and whacking him/her in the butt with the staff, “Fine, I’ll just hack into SHIELD when I get home.”  
I look up to see Iron Man gliding by, “Cool, another Avengers.”  
“Wait,” Black Widow freezes, staring at me, “Did you say that you’ll hack SHIELD?”  
Before I can respond, something plucks me up from the ground. It’s Iron Man.  
“AT LEAST ASK FOR MY NAME BEFORE YOU FLY ME AROUND NEW YORK, YOU DUMB…”


	2. Tony

Man, the kid cusses like a sailor. As I fly her away, she utters a string of curses that would make a pirate blush.  
“Could you be quiet down there, I’m concentrating,” I say.  
“Why should I, I was coming up for a nickname for Cap,” she pouts.  
I kinda like this girl. She reminds me of myself. Kinda.  
“Look out!” she shouts as a bunch of aliens come barreling towards us on little hovercraft. I raise one hand and fire at them, and the girl shoots the staff that she has. Wait. Where did that come from?  
“So, kid, what’s your story?” I ask once we clear the aliens from the sky.  
“Oh, so now I’ve graduated to kid?” she deadpans, “Well, if you really must know, my name is Alexandra Melevna, but call me Alex if you want. No not if you want. If you call me Alexandra, I’ll kill you.”  
“Hold on a sec,” I say, mind racing, “Did you say Melevna?”  
“Yeah, does that suit make you deaf?”  
I tell JARVIS to remind me of that information when the battle is over.  
“Hey, go down lower for a moment, I think I see some civilians,” Alex orders.  
“Yes sir,” I look down to see that she’s on her phone. At a moment like this?  
I dip down towards the street, scanning it for civilians.  
All of a sudden, the hand holding Alex spasms.  
“Ciao!” she cries as she drops towards the ground. To be fair, we’re not that high up, but this fall should still result in some broken bones. But, Alex rolls as she hits the ground, looking like a just your average SHIELD agent in the field.  
“Alright, what did you do?” I ask, swooping down lower.  
“Just hacked into you suit so you would drop me. It was really easy. That dumb AI system you have installed didn’t even notice. And don’t come any closer or I’ll make your whole suit spasm, and splat goes Iron Man,” she even has the gal to smirk at me as she turns and runs towards a group of civilians a few feet away.  
I sigh and swoop back up into the air, “Sorry kid.”  
And I tell Fury about my encounter with Alexandra Melevna. And warn the other Avengers. I’ve heard the name Melevna before.


	3. Alex

That guy was Tony Stark. That guy was the genius who created a metal suit in a cave? Damn, how do the Avengers survive.  
I help some more civilians get through the alien infested streets, readily using my staff of death and giving other to some of the people I help so they can defend themselves.  
I’m calling other people civilians now. What am I, some kind of vigilante? No, just your average citizen helping others.  
But, out of intuition, I pull up my hood, so my face is in shadow. I don’t know why, but it’s an impulse. Just in case.  
I look up to see one of those Star Wars speeder bike things racing down the street in the air, with a weird looking dude on it. He’s wearing a helmet that looks like reindeer antlers. I have an impulse (geez, what is it with the impulses today) to find out what he’s doing. Probably not the best idea, but too late now, I’m already in the building beside me, running up flights of stairs. But the time I get to the roof the man will be gone, but I can hitch a ride on another speeder bike.  
I stand on the roof, looking around at the city. Every once in a while, I’ll see an explosion, or Iron Man racing between buildings.  
With a buzzing noise, another speeder bike comes by. I get ready to jump.  
For a moment, I’m suspended in the air, before I hit the back of the bike. As the alien on the back turns, I shout, “Sorry,” and kick him off. I don’t know where these karate kid moves are coming from, but if it helps me, then it’s fine.  
The alien on the front of the bike levels his staff to shoot at a group of people below, but I kick him too.  
“What the hell?” says a voice behind me.  
I turn to see Black Widow on another bike, “Oh, you had the same idea as me.”  
“Get down from there,” Black Widow orders. I ignore her.  
“I’m helping people,” I snap, trying to figure out how to steer this stupid bike.  
“That’s our job,” Black Widow brings her bike up next to me.  
Finally, I figure out how to steer, “You’re a little busy with that, chasing Sven over there.”  
As we round the corner I point at the reindeer antler guy, who I nicknamed Sven.  
“I have to get to the wormhole generator and shut it down, so don’t do anything to crazy.”  
“I’ll try.”  
Sven seems to have noticed Black Widow and I, and turns his bike around to chase us. Or rather her. Not me.  
“Hey, Dasher!” I shout, making up reindeer related nicknames as I go, “Over here!”  
Sven looks confused for a second, before ignoring me, and going towards Black Widow again.  
“Fine,” I say, steering the bike up beside Sven, “I guess I’ll have to do this the hard way.”  
And I let go of the bike’s control, and leap onto Sven’s bike. For a moment he doesn’t notice me, but then he does.  
“Which puny mortal has decided to face me now?” he asks, turning. Then Sven looks confused, “You are not an Avenger.”  
“No duh,” I say, and kick him.  
Sven seems surprised, but he only shows it for a moment, before he reaches out to grab me. I duck under him and whack his arm with my staff.  
“So, is your name really Sven?” I ask, ducking under his kick.  
“I am Loki of Asgard!” he growls.  
“Sven’s better,” I mutter.  
Black Widow levels out her bike beside me, “What are you doing.”  
I block Loki’s punch with my staff, “Just fighting Sven here.”  
Black Widow looks at me like I’m crazy, but then Loki punches me, and I fall backwards, just grasping the side of the bike.  
“You do not know who you are, Alexandra Melevna,” Loki says.  
“How do you know my name?” I gasp, trying to hold onto the bike.  
“My scepter has given me knowledge,” Loki holds a hand up like some god.  
“My scepter has give me knowledge,” I mock. As Black Widow’s bike comes closer again, I grip my feet on the bike and use the leverage to boost myself up into a handstand on Loki’s bike, which I roll out of and jump up on his feet.  
“You go do that wormhole stuff,” I look over at Black Widow, “I’ll keep Rudolph here occupied.”  
Black Widow rolls her eyes, before veering away down a side street.  
“So, what’s this scepter like?” I ask Loki.  
“Blast,” he ignores me, steering around, “I have to get to the generator.”  
“What are you, a 19th century butler from England?”  
Loki is still ignoring me.  
The bike starts going upwards, towards a nearby skyscraper, and Loki turns, almost hitting my head as he kicks at me. I duck and attempt to drop kick him, but he sidesteps.  
Suddenly, Loki is holding an arrow in his hand. I look up to see Hawkeye standing on a nearby building.  
Then everything goes out of control. The bike blows up and I go flying.  
“Shit!” I shout. I’m vaguely aware of where the ground is, and where the sky is, but not really.  
I hit the gravel floor of the roof right next to Loki. Groaning, I roll over, just as Black Widow hits the roof a few feet away.  
“You’re still here!” she curses and leaps up.  
“What, you thought I’d just jump 50 feet down to the street from Rudolph’s speeder bike.”  
Black Widow smirks. I duck impulsively under Loki’s punch.  
A shape flies out of the sky and smashes into Loki. It’s the Hulk, who immediately starts flinging Loki around. He looks like a ragdoll.  
When Hulk stops smashing Loki, I hop through the broken window and walk up to him.  
“Good job!” I say. Hulk stops, looking confused. I hold up a hand, “Up top big guy.”  
He slams my hand and I fall backwards, “Good enough.”  
Hulk leaps away and I walk back outside to Black Widow talking to an older man with blood on his forehead. Where the heck do these people come from?  
“-It’s right down there,” the man says.  
“What’s right down there?” I ask. Black Widow jumps as I walk up beside her.  
“How do you do that?” Black Widow hisses.  
“I’m not doing anything, Black… can I call you anything else.”  
Black Widow looks at me funny, “What?”  
“Like, other than Black Widow. That’s what I’m calling you in my head, and it’s a mouthful.”  
“Just call me Agent Romanoff.”  
“That’s even more complicated,” I mutter.  
Black Widow leaps down and retrieves the scepter, while the old dude sets up some computer thing. I’m not as into it as usual, kinda busy standing on the edge of the building and shooting aliens out of the sky.  
“There’s a bomb headed for midtown,” Romanoff’s hand is on her earpiece, “Three minutes until it goes off.”  
“The least we can do is stop this portal,” I say grimly.  
Romanoff’s eyes widen, “Tony’s going to try to get it through the portal.”  
“That’s a suicide mission!”  
Romanoff nods, “Once he goes through the portal, we’ll give him a few seconds, and then close it.”  
For once, I don’t say anything.  
Tony Stark clears the buildings, holding the missile and steers it into the portal.  
For a moment, there’s silence, and then the aliens collapse. The giant turtle ships fall towards the city. Romanoff whispers, “Come on Stark.”  
A muffled sound of an explosion comes from the portal, and Romanoff shoves the scepter into it. The energy going to the portal disappears and it starts to close. And Stark appears, falling towards the city.  
The Avengers gather on top of the rooftop as I stand to the side. No one notices me, and I don’t say anything. And they handcuff Loki.  
Once they’ve handcuffed him, then they notice me.  
“Who is this young mortal,” asked Thor.  
“Well, it’s been fun battling with you guys, but I really have to go,” I say, and salute Loki, “Ciao Rudolph, Avengers.”  
And I jump off the building.  
I hacked into one of the alien speeder bikes, so it answers to my command, and it’s waiting right beneath me.  
As I steer it forward, smiling at the Avengers’ astonished shouts.


	4. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the really short chapter guys, it's just an insight into right after the Battle of New York.

It’s been a few days since the Battle of New York. They’re already rebuilding things, and I’m back at the orphanage.  
I’ve seen the Avengers on the news almost constantly, but I also saw myself with my hood up, shooting at monsters and help civilians to safety. And I dyed my hair, with the money I saved up. I’ve been planning to do so for some time now. The ends of my locks are red, white, and blue, like the American flag. I don’t know why I chose those colors. Perhaps meeting Captain America inspired me.  
I take a walk in Central Park, looking at the bright green trees. Then I see them. It’s definitely Romanoff, and Loki’s there too, wearing a really weird thing over his mouth.  
I pull my sunglasses out of my pocket and put them on.  
Slowly, I walk past. For a moment the Avengers talk, before a blue beam of light comes down and Loki and Thor disappear. And no one notices me. I guess dying my hair was handy. I sit down on a bench nearby and take out my phone. I can hear what they’re saying.  
“Well, that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about,” says the dude with the eyepatch. I decide to nickname him Black Beard.  
“But now we should really talk about that girl, what was her name?” Romanoff asks.  
“Alexandra Melevna,” Stark says.  
“Melevna,” the guy with blond hair frowns, “I feel like I’ve heard that name before.”  
“You have,” Black Beard grunts, “But we can’t talk about it here, it’s to dangerous.”  
I curse under my breath and get up. I wasn’t prepared for this. If I had the time, I would rig up a device to attach to one of their jackets so that I could listen in, but I don’t have time.  
Maybe when I get back to the orphanage, I’ll try to hack into SHIELD and find out what they said.


	5. Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again with the short chapter. I promise the next one will be longer!

“So, Melevna, why’s that important,” I ask.  
We’re back at Stark Tower, discussing the girl, Alexandra.  
Tony pulls up some holographic documents. The face of a dark-haired man stares back at us.  
“James Melevna. He was a Russian scientist and doctor. We don’t know much about him, but we know that he frequently experimented on people, and tried to create his own Super Soldier Serum. SHIELD actually raided his house a while back and found some interesting things. And they took his two-year-old daughter to be relocated. But by the time SHIELD got there, he was gone,” Tony explains.  
“So, the two-year-old was Alexandra,” Steve surmises.  
“Well, she prefers to be called Alex, as I found out when I was carrying her,” Tony mutters.  
My mind flies, thinking about different things.  
“We also recovered some security footage of Alex from the battle,” Fury taps on a video.  
It’s footage taken from multiple cameras, following Loki’s hovercraft. In the video, Alex kicks Loki and blocks his punch with her staff, but he catches her off guard and she stumbles back and barely grasps the side of the hovercraft. I see my hovercraft coming closer and she uses it to boost herself up into a handstand and rolls over to land at Loki’s feet. She dodges another kick, a moment before Loki catches the arrow that Clint shot at him, and the hovercraft explodes.  
“So, how did she hold Loki off for that long?” Clint asks, “No offense, Steve, but she held him off longer than you did.”  
“None taken.”  
“You mind explaining this, Stark,” Fury looks over at Tony.  
Tony clasps his hands together, “Okay, so, our theory is that this man, Alex’s father, experimented on her as a young child, and possibly injected her with his own Super Soldier Serum.”  
Steve looks at Tony incredulously, “So she’s like me.”  
“If the serum was successful, then yes,” Fury steps forward, “But we’d have to get her to test her blood and see.”  
“How do you plan on doing that, there’s eight million people living in New York City,” I raise an eyebrow at Fury.  
“Don’t worry,” he says, “I have a plan.”  
After Fury dismisses us, I go back to my room and suit up. I still don’t understand how we’re supposed to find this girl. Well, at least I know what she looks like. Reddish-brown hair, bright green eyes, annoying but funny.  
She’s so much like Tony, coming up with nicknames for everyone she meets. Or every Avenger she meets. It aggravates me, but at the same time, she reminds me of myself. And of Tony. Way too much.  
“All right,” I walk out of my room, putting my earpiece into my ear, “I’m all ready.”  
“You know what to do,” Fury says through my earpiece.  
“Aye aye captain,” Tony’s voice sounds tinny through the earpiece.  
“You’re not even here yet,” I deadpan, stepping into the elevator.  
Clint steps in beside me, bow in hand, “Now remind me again why we’re doing this?”  
“Fury said,” I raise an eyebrow again.  
We take a SHIELD van to a spot near the 6th avenue foster home. We found out that that’s where Alex lives. Tony pulls up in his sports car and knocks on the door. Clint and I jump out and stand behind him. We’re here in case Alex doesn’t cooperate.  
“Hello,” Tony says when a man answers the door, “We’re here to see Alexandra Melevna.”  
“Who are you?” he asks.  
I push past Stark and the man to see someone running up the stairs.  
“She’s running, secure the alley behind the place,” I say, and run.


	6. Alex

The moment I hear Stark’s voice, I run. As I go, I pull up the program that hacked Stark’s suit on my phone. A fail safe. I know what they’re here for. I hacked into SHIELD for that information.  
I grab my already packed bag and slide my phone into my picked before sliding out the window.  
I hold onto the gutter and glide down to the street below.  
“Freeze,” says Romanoff.  
I put my hands up and turn. Stark, Romanoff, and a man holding a bow, whom I can only assume must be Hawkeye, stand in the mouth of the alley.   
Romanoff steps forwards, hand on her gun, “You’re under arrest by order of SHIELD.”  
“Well screw SHIELD then,” I growl and drop my bag on the ground.  
Romanoff kicks high and I duck, landing a glancing punch before dancing out of reach.  
“Please Alexandra,” Hawkeye says, “Just come with us.”  
I take a moment to glare at him, “You did not just say that name.”  
Romanoff feints and I block her next punch with my forearm.  
“We’re trying to be reasonable, Alexandra.”  
I turn to face Hawkeye, “Alright Robin Hood. Call me Alexandra one more time. I dare you.”  
“Just listen Alexandra, we-“  
I kick him in the stomach and he collapses groaning. Stark whistles admiringly and Romanoff hisses at him.  
I sidestep her next kick and pivot off the wall into a cartwheel.  
“I know who my father is, what he did,” I punch blindly, rage clouding my features. Romanoff struggles to shield her face.  
“I don’t know what he did to me, but I’m going to figure it out,” my punches keep going.  
Suddenly, Romanoff hits me in the stomach and I go flying into the wall behind me. I roll under her kick.  
“Freeze,” Hawkeye is back up, his bow drawn.  
I pull my phone from my pocket and get up slowly.  
“I’ll give you one last chance to leave me alone, before things get ugly,” I warn.  
Stark laughs, “That’s funny.”  
I roll my eyes and I hold up my phone, “The moment anyone makes a move, I hit this button, and the AC adaptor in Metal Boy’s chest short-circuits.”  
“Did you just call me Metal Boy?” Stark looks at me incredulously, “Did she just call me Metal Boy?”  
“I mean it,” I say. Hawkeye, Stark, and Romanoff all freeze for a moment.  
Then I feel white-hot pain in my thigh and look down at an arrow embedded in my leg.  
“That counted as moving.”  
But before I can do anything, my limbs turn to jelly and I collapse. The last thing I do is mutter, “Son of a bitch,” before everything goes black.  
I wake up in a small dank cell, handcuffed. I can see two guards standing on either side of the bars. I try to stand, but my head spins from whatever drug was on that arrow. I look down. My thigh has been bandaged and the arrow isn’t there anymore. I guess that’s good. But my phone’s gone. That’s not good.  
I hate waiting, so I try to make small talk with the guards.  
“So Beefy, Burly, how much you get paid for guarding dangerous prisoners?” I ask.  
Beefy and Burly ignore me.  
“It must be not much if you don’t want to respond,” I flop back down at the back of my cell.  
I hear footsteps and perk up instantly, only to see Black Beard stand before my cell.  
“Secure the prisoner, I need her to come with me,” he says. The guards nod and open the cell door.  
“Don’t even think about escaping, Miss Melevna,” Black Beard glares at me as the guards help me up and lead me out of the cell.  
“Why would I do that?” I roll my eyes before swiping one of the guards’ security cards and slipping it into my pocket. Now I just need the key to these handcuffs and my phone. Or a phone.  
“So, Black Beard, why do you only have one eye?” I look at him curiously as if I’m not handcuffed and being led through a secret government organization’s base.  
“That’s classified. And my name is Director Nick Fury, so I suggest you start calling me that,” he grunts.  
I roll my eyes again and imitate Fury, “That’s classified. So where are we going Nicky.”  
Fury ignores me and swipes his card at a door. We walk up some stairs and outside. I squint in the daylight for a moment, before I’m back in the darkness in the back of a van.  
It isn’t a long ride. When we get out, I get a quick look the Avengers logo on the side of the building before I’m pushed inside. We must be at Stark Tower.  
The interior is sleek and modern, and I get a glimpse of a furnished lobby before being shoved into an elevator.  
“Nick, I have another question,” I say, trying not to panic as the elevator doors close. The only thing that I’m afraid of is elevators. It’s a pretty dumb fear, but that’s not gonna change it.  
“Just be quiet,” Fury grunts. My stomach lurches as the elevator starts to move. I keep a straight face through the ride.  
“Second door on the left,” Fury orders, and the guards push me down the hallway. Fury opens the door and grabs my arm. The guards stay outside. I look up to the stares of a group of people. Tony Stark’s here, Agent Romanoff, Thor, Hawkeye. There’s two other people, a man with blond hair, and a skinny guy with graying hair.  
“Hey, it’s the Avengers,” I smile as Fury sits me down in a chair.  
“Only some of us are Avengers, kid,” Stark says.  
“No, you’re all here. I know that the redhead is Black Widow. Everyone knows that you’re Iron Man, Tony Stark. Thunder Road over here is obviously Thor. And that’s Hawkeye without his bow,” I slouch back in my chair, putting one leg over the other. As though I wasn’t a prisoner.  
“I’m not an Avenger,” the blond dude says.  
I quirk an eyebrow, “You obviously are Captain. And that leaves the scientist. He can turn into something big, and green.”  
The Avengers look at me, astonished. Romanoff recovers first. “Now you tell us something. Where is your father.”  
“How about we make a trade,” I lean forward, “You take these handcuffs off me, and I tell you.”  
“We won’t just-“ Romanoff says.  
“I won’t say a thing until you do.”  
Fury grunts and stands up, “Fine.” He unlocks my handcuffs and I massage my sore wrists. “Where is your father.”  
“I don’t know. I don’t even remember him.”  
“We’re not playing games,” Hawkeye glares at me.  
I look at my wrist like there’s a watch there, “It’s been two seconds. I still don’t remember him. The only things I know about him are from the files I found when I hacked SHIELD earlier.  
“So you really did hack SHIELD,” Fury looks at me oddly.  
“I wasn’t kidding,” Romanoff growls.  
I roll my eyes, “Yeah, and I can prove it, if you just give me my phone.”  
“Not a chance.”  
Cap, the man with blond hair, leans forward in his seat, “So, what did he do to you.”  
“Again, you let me have something, I give you answers,” I say.  
Cap looks over at Fury, and Fury nods, “What do you want.”  
“I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”  
“What do you want to eat?” Cap looks bored.  
“Uh,” Stark cuts in, “There’s pretty much no food here.”  
“There’s a burger joint on 5th Avenue. Just order a burger and some fries.”  
Romanoff looks around, “Who wants to go.”  
Everyone looks at Stark.  
“No, just because I have a flying metal suit doesn’t mean-“  
But Romanoff is already pushing him towards the door. I chuckle and lean back in my seat. This is going to be fun.


	7. Tony

I try to protest as Natasha pushes me out the door. But, as usual, she doesn’t listen. I take my personal elevator up to the top floor and put on my suit. I programmed it to come from the floor and place the pieces on me as I walk.  
I take off from the large balcony and fly through the cool air of night time New York City. I can’t believe we’re letting ourselves be bossed around by a little girl. It’s insane. I guess we aren’t very good at interrogation.  
I touch down beside the Burger Joint and my suit disappears into a small metal briefcase.  
“Two burgers, an order of fries and a large coke to go, please,” I say to the man taking orders. A few minutes later he comes out carrying a to-go bag.  
Once outside, I program the suit to fit itself back around me and fly back through the city to Stark Tower.  
“I hope you’re happy,” I growl as I set into the room. I give one burger and the fries to Alex, before sitting backwards in my own chair and eating my own burger.  
“You didn’t get me one?” Clint whines.  
“So,” I ignore him and look at Alex, “Talk.”  
She takes a bite of her burger and chews thoughtfully for a minute before starting, “I’m not sure what he did to me, but I did unearth some things about him before you guys decided to kidnap me. Do you have a computer around here.”  
“You won’t try to escape?” Fury questions.  
“I wouldn’t get very far with seven of you watching me.”  
“Come with me,” I say, and stand. Alex and my team all get up and follow me. I take them up to my office, where there’s a computer built into the desk.  
“Use this, try not to break it.”  
Alex smiles and pulls up the display. She taps around a bit, taking bites of her burger as she does so.  
“Fury, could you please give me the flash drive you took when you searched me. It has the information on it,” Alex holds out her hand.  
Fury grunts, mildly surprised, and pulls a black flash drive from his back pocket. Alex takes it and puts it into the computer. A loading screen pops up before documents start appearing on the hologram.  
“My father, James Melevna, was a Russian scientist and doctor. He was married to my mother, Naomi Melevna for about a year before she had me and died soon after. It wasn’t an accident. My father… my father murdered her. James Melevna murdered her.”  
Natasha stands up as if she wants to comfort Alex, but Alex keeps going. “He was pardoned because he was important to the Russian government. He wasn’t punished. But he started to go rogue, and he moved to a location outside of Russia, taking me, his daughter,” she stumbles over the word, “and his lab with him. After that more people died, went missing, all closely related to him. That’s probably about when SHIELD got the call to raid his home and take him prisoner. But he was gone. All they found was a young girl and bodies in suspended animation. SHIELD put me in a foster home in New Jersey, and I moved around from there. You probably have the rest in your records.”  
Everyone is silent for a moment, before Fury speaks, “We will need to do some tests on you, Miss Melevna, to figure out what did happen to you.”  
“Let me finish,” is all she says.  
Fury nods.  
“The bodies in the tanks weren’t dead. SHIELD thought they were, but they weren’t. They were super soldiers, waiting to be used.”  
With that Alex stops talking.


	8. Alex

Fury motions towards the scientist, who opens his briefcase and takes out a needle.  
“What’s that for,” I ask, my voice barely there.  
“We’re just going to take a blood test,” the scientist explains.  
I pull up my sleeve and he cleans my skin with antiseptic. I don’t flinch as the needle goes into me. It doesn’t hurt. I’m not sure why.  
“Get some sleep, we’ll observe your physical and mental condition in the morning,” Fury says. He looks back at the Avengers, “You’re dismissed.”  
“Do I have to go back to my cell, Nick, I mean, Director Fury?” I ask.  
Fury looks over at the Avengers, “I assume they have a spare room around here somewhere. If not, I don’t think they’ll mind you bunking with them tonight.”  
I nod and give Fury a mocking salute before he exits the room.  
“Come with me,” Romanoff motions to the door, “There’s a spare room next to mine.”  
I follow her, not saying a word.  
“You know, for such a talker, you’re really quiet. Is something wrong?” Romanoff opens a door and steps into a drab bedroom behind me.  
“How could something not be wrong,” I sit down on the bed and Romanoff sits down beside me, “Today, I found out that my dad is a murderer and experimented on me as a child. I was kidnapped, and I can’t figure out what happened to me.”  
I blink tears from my eyes as Romanoff’s expression softens. She pulls me into a hug and I lean into her.  
“Um, just a quick question, do you have a first name?” I look up at Romanoff.  
“Now that’s the Alex I’m familiar with. It’s Natasha, call me Nat.”  
I nod and smile as Nat gets up and leaves. The room seems larger without her, I lay back on the bed and close my eyes.  
I wake up to someone rapping on the door. “Come in,” I groan, sure it’s Mr. Martinez coming to yell at me for being late.  
But instead of Mr. Martinez, it’s Nat, suited up in her Black Widow gear. “Come with me,” she says, “Let’s get you some breakfast and suitable clothes.”  
All the Avengers are in the big kitchen downstairs, eating breakfast. The scientist is flipping pancakes on the stove.  
I grab a plate from the island and put a couple pancakes on it, drowning them in syrup and butter.  
“So, big guy, is there anything up can call you besides scientist dude and Hulk?” I ask.  
“I’m Banner. Bruce Banner,” he looks up for a moment to smirk at me.  
I sit down on the island beside Stark, “Boy, you can hardly tell I’m a prisoner.”  
Stark’s only response is, “Are you trying to drown those pancakes.”  
I spear a piece of pancake with my fork, “I wasn’t planning on it. But, in my opinion, drowned pancakes are better than un-drowned pancakes.”  
Stark chuckles and turns his attention to his breakfast. Thor slides into the chair on the other side of me. “Ah, the young Midgardian,” he bellows.  
“Mmph gwarwa,” I talk though a mouthful of pancakes.  
“What was that you said?” Thor asks.  
“I said, Ah the young Midgardian,” I do an impression of Thor.  
Thor doesn’t seem to understand.  
“Alright Alex, time to go,” Nat says from behind me. I put my plate in the sink and follow her upstairs again, to what looks to be a weapons room, full of supplies and armor.  
“Woah,” I gasp, walking past a row of compound bows. “These weapons are freaking awesome!”  
“Do you think you would fit into some of my old clothes?” Nat asks.  
I look over at her, “Probably, we’re about the same build.”  
A few minutes later, I’m decked out in a plain black tank top, leggings, boots, and fingerless gloves.  
“If you could choose a weapon from this room, what would you go for?” Nat looks around.  
I walk along the walls slowly, looking at the guns, spears, swords, staffs, bows. Then I come to a black staff. I carefully pull it from its shelf and turn it over, looking at the mechanics. There are two smooth grooves, one on either side, each a few inches from the end of the staff. Experimentally, I twist and pull on the section and the come loose, each extending into a sword. The middle section folded into a round metal tube and clanged to the ground.  
“It also can shoot short bursts of electricity and shocks things when in its staff form. Do you like it?” Stark says from the door.  
“It’s awesome,” I click the swords back into place and it becomes a staff again, “Can I try it out?”  
“Sure,” Stark smiles and leaves. I take the staff with me and follow Nat out.  
We go downstairs again and go into a large room. It’s matted, clearly made for fighting. As I enter the room, Banner starts hooking things up to me.  
“What’s this for?” I ask.  
“We’re measuring your physique, energy, heart rate, the like,” he says, letting me through after hooking a few more things up to me.  
There’s a large computer station set up with a large reclining chair, Fury and Banner standing by it.  
“We want to see how well you fight,” Fury calls across the room. “Try a bit of sparring with Agent Romanoff.”  
I sigh, making a show of rolling my eyes, before setting down the staff, and going onto the mat. Nat takes up a fighting stance parallel to me.  
“Go.”  
Nat kicks high and up duck and roll, ending up behind her. I feint to the left and swing a quick punch before leaping away. Nat smiles and dropkicks me. I hit the mat hard, all the breath going out of me. But before Nat can pin me, I roll away and kick at her face. She barely ducks and I feel my leg whoosh right over her head.  
“This is fun!” Nat says, as if she could do this all day.  
I spin as she punches, leaping up and kicking her in the stomach. Nat groans and falls backwards on the mat. I pin her under me in a flash.  
“You know,” her voice is strained, “No one’s ever beaten me before.”  
“There’s a first time for everything,” I laugh.  
“Not today,” Nat pushes us both up and effortlessly pins me. I struggle beneath her but can’t get up.  
“Admirable effort, Miss Melevna,” Fury says as Nat helps me up.  
“Don’t call me that,” I growl.  
Nat puts her hand on my shoulder, “Don’t be ashamed of your name. You can’t change your heritage, but you can change your legacy.”  
“Sage advice from a spider,” I crow, but I smile at Nat gratefully.  
“Next, we want to test your mental capabilities,” Fury says. He takes a syringe full of purple liquid from the table and Nat leads me over to the chair. “This serum will access some of your memories, and your thoughts. We’ll see what you see from the computer. Just relax and stay calm.”  
I stiffen, “Is there another way to do this?”  
“No,” Fury cleans my arm with antiseptic as I sit down in the chair, “Don’t worry.”  
I try to breath normally as Fury injects the serum into my arm. For a moment nothing happens. Then everything goes black.  
I open my eyes to a cold tundra. Across from me there’s a figure. “Hello?” I shout, but the figure doesn’t hear me.  
I walk over to him, fighting against the snow swirling through the gray sky. “Who are you?”  
He turns and I see a familiar face, “Dad? James Melevna?”  
Suddenly I’m in a lab lying on a table. A faceless man cleans a syringe with a cloth and injects it into me. My body convulses from the pain. I look up at the people in tanks across the room.  
The scene becomes the foster home I used to live in, before I ran away. A man stands before me, a knife in his hand.  
“This is what happens when you disobey me,” he says, and slams the knife into my leg.  
Before I feel the pain, the scene changes again. Now I’m one of the people in the tanks. I can see my father outside the tank, bent over a woman’s figure on the table. I scream and slam my hands against the glass. It’s my mother. He’s killing her.  
The glass shatters before me and I fall from the tank, shards of glass embedded into my skin. But my father is gone, and the lab is dark.  
I wake up gasping. Banner, Nat, and Fury are all staring at me.  
“We’ve never had someone react that violently,” Banner manages to say.  
“No shit,” I growl and stand. I storm out into the hallway and lean against the wall, arms crossed. My head is pounding, probably from the stupid drugs.  
Nat comes out behind me. “That was all you?” she asked.  
“Yes.”  
“I-I didn’t know.”  
“No one knew. Some of those are nightmares I’ve had before and never understood.”  
“Was the one with th-the man with the knife- was that one real?”  
I pull up my pant leg, revealing the long scar on my left calf. Nat sucks in a breath.  
“You know, I remember a time when someone did the same to me,” Nat pulls back her left sleeve, showing a scar similar to mine, “When I was training. A girl decided to take a knife and use it on me, just for the fun of it. She got my arm before they pulled her off of me.”  
“Where did you grow up?” I ask tentatively.  
“Russia. The Red Room Academy. It’s a secret academy where they teach young girls into spies and assassins.”  
“That must have been awful.”  
“You have no idea.”  
I stand up, “I suppose I should go back in. After today Fury will probably take me to some remote SHIELD facility and lock me up for the rest of my life.”  
Before Nat can respond, Banner opens the door and peeks his head around the corner, “We got your blood test back. You’re not going to believe this.”  
Nat and I push past Banner into the room. He jogs over to the computer and pulls up a picture.  
“What is that?” I squint at the picture.  
“Your blood,” Fury answers grimly.  
“What’s wrong about that?”  
“First of all, you were injected with some kind of super soldier serum. But, your blood isn’t normal. It’s toxic. When we took it from you, it was 15% toxic, which is a bad sign. Can we take another sample?” Banner explains.  
“I don’t understand what’s happening, but go ahead,” I shrug. I’m really confused now.  
Banner cleans my arm again and uses a syringe to take my blood again. He puts it in a centrifuge and does some other science stuff that I don’t understand. A few minutes later, he gasps and stops. He does a few things again, as if to check it.  
“I don’t get it. How is this happening?” Banner mutters, “32%, that can’t be right. But there’s no symptoms of bacteremia, or sepsis. Or even septicemia.”  
My head is really pounding now.  
“Does anything hurt?” Banner asks, sitting me down in the chair. He shines a light in my eyes.  
“I have a bit of a headache, but I’m fine other than that,” as soon as I say it, the room spins around me, “It’s probably just the serum.”  
“It’s not that,” Nat frowns, but her head seems to spin off course. Why are the lights so bright all of a sudden?  
“I don’t know what to do,” Banner says. He shines a light in my eyes again.  
“I’ll call Tony,” Fury pulls out his phone.  
I lean back in the chair, not completely following everything.  
“You’re going to be okay,” Nat leans close to me and pats my shoulder.  
Stark and Banner are talking, “Do you think we can get anyone in here that fast.”  
“She’s important,” Fury orders, “Don’t let anything happen to her.”  
I try to take a breath as someone picks me up and puts me on a bed. And Banner leans over me and sticks a needle into my shoulder before everything goes black.


	9. Alex

I drift in and out of consciousness. Sometimes I can hear people around me, but not really. And in between my brief waking moments are the dreams.  
“You’re just a dumb little girl,” the man snarls.  
I kick him between the legs and he gasps, stumbling backwards. But before I can run, he grabs my arm and drags me to the kitchen. I scream and struggle against him as he takes a knife from the table.  
“This is what happens when you disobey me,” he says and slams the knife into my leg.  
My eyes flutter open slowly. I’m staring at a boring white ceiling, and I can hear beeping in the background.  
“You’re awake!” someone says softly, sounding astonished.  
I move my head slowly and see Banner, “What, that’s surprising. My senses were tingling because I wasn’t talking enough.”  
Banner chuckles, “You’ve been out for a week.”  
I roll over and stretch my arms, “Holy shit.”  
“You know, Rogers doesn’t like those bad language words.”  
“Who?” I stop and stare at Banner.  
“The blond guy,” he keeps doing computer stuff. My finger itch to be running across a keyboard as I watch.  
“Cap? That’s his name?” I wonder aloud.  
Banner gulps, “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”  
“Too late now.”  
Banner looks up from his computer and seems to talk to thin air, “JARVIS, tell the others that Alex is awake.”  
“Yes, Dr. Banner,” says a disembodied voice from the wall.  
“Woah!” I sit up to fast and feel a sharp pain in my chest, “What was that.”  
“That was JARVIS, Tony’s AI system. Don’t sit up to fast, you’ll break the stitches.”  
Now I realize that I’m wearing a dress. A hospital gown. Oh my god.  
“Where am I?” I ask.  
“Stark Tower has a specialized hospital wing. We didn’t want you to go to the hospital because of the complications,” Banner helps me prop myself up against the pillows.  
“What happened?” I ask.  
“Well, you had some kind of seizure…”  
Don’t remember that.  
“So I had to shoot you with a sedative. We did emergency surgery with some SHIELD doctors. It turns out the outside properties in your blood, residue from your father’s experiments, reacted badly, first with the sedative in Bart-Hawkeye’s arrow, then with the serum. The sedative that I used had different properties, so that it wouldn’t react with your blood. But you didn’t die, so that’s good.”  
“I feel like I’ve been run over by a freaking truck.”  
Before Banner can respond, I hear voices outside the door. Then a bunch of people crash in. There’s Stark, Thor, Hawkeye, Nat, Rogers, and Fury.  
“You guys don’t totally hate me!” I smile weakly.  
“How are you feeling, kid?” Tony asks.  
“Like I’ve been run over by a truck.”  
Nat smiles.  
“So, Fury, what are you going to do with me,” I raise any eyebrow at the Director, “Such a little trouble maker I am.”  
Fury glares at me for a second before responding, “You’re in peak physical condition, Miss Melevna. It would be a shame to waste your potential and lock you up for the rest of your life.”  
“Oh, a holy shame,” I comment. Fury ignores me.  
“So I’ve decided to have Agent Romanoff train you a bit. If you don’t want to, of course I can make room in a cell for you, but I think you would more enjoy training. Perhaps one day you’ll be a SHIELD agent.”  
That’s why Nat’s eyes are shining so proudly.  
“Oh course!” I shout. I make the mistake of leaping up, and crumple to the ground groaning. I raise my thumb into the air, “I’m okay!”  
Over the next few weeks, I recover. Fury gives my phone back to me, but makes me promise not to hack into any government organization without express permission from him. I’m basically a SHIELD intern now. Or I will be once I start training with Nat.  
Every day is mostly the same. I go and have breakfast in the kitchen. The I do conditioning in a workout room with Nat and Steve, lift some weights. After lunch I help Tony in his workshop, help being a code word for sitting around on my phone while Tony works on his suit. Then Bruce tests me a bit. I’m not entirely sure what he’s doing.  
I’m excited to meet Stark’s girlfriend (and secretary?) Pepper. She’s out of town for now, but Stark talks about her so much it’s annoying.  
One day, while walking through the long halls of Stark Tower, I find the same matted room that I was in, that first day. Everything’s still as it was when I was last there. Even the staff. I pick up and twirl it experimentally around my fingers before twisting and pulling the parts of the staff apart to reveal the two swords.  
I swing them around my head and try a quick cartwheel while carrying the blades. My brown hair, then ends brilliant red, and blue, flies around my head as I leap up and draw the blades through the air. I leap into the air and slash the swords through air. I parry and stab at invisible enemies, dancing around the room.  
I hear an admiring whistle from the door and look up at Nat.  
“Amazing,” she says, “I guess you’re better.”  
“What does that mean?” I ask, clicking the blades back into place to make the staff again.  
“Training starts in a minute. But I’m hungry, so lets go grab some lunch,” Nat turns and walks back down the hallway. I follow her, still carrying the staff.  
“I’m trying to work out how I’ll retrieve the metal piece that holds the staff together,” I say to Nat, “It won’t be good if I just leave it in the middle of a battle, in case I need the staff in one piece.”  
We step into the kitchen, where the Avengers are having lunch. An unfamiliar woman with strawberry blond hair is standing at the stove.  
“Who’s this?” I ask.  
“This is Pepper,” Stark pats the woman’s shoulder as she turns around. Her eyes smile as she sees me.  
“You must be the little Avenger,” Pepper says.  
“I’m not an Avenger, Salt and Pepper,” I blush and grab a plate of grilled cheese.  
“You were right about the nicknames Tony,” Pepper laughs.  
I stand up and twist my staff apart, sitting the swords on the island, “So Stark, is this piece of the staff magnetic?” I hold up the middle section.  
“I don’t know, why-“ before Stark finishes, I throw the middle section at the fridge.  
Everyone in the room shouts at the same time. The middle section sticks to the fridge.  
“I guess that answers my question,” I say, and pull it from the fridge, clicking it back into place on the staff.  
“Faster,” Nat orders, and I sweep the staff along the ground again, in a maneuver to knock my opponent from their feet.  
“Remember, you don’t want them to expect it,” Nat says, before demonstrating with her staff again.  
In a flash of motion, I knock Nat to the ground with my staff. She blinks, surprised.  
“Was that good?” I lean against my staff, smiling.  
“Better,” Nat admits, getting up.  
Now every day we get up early, train hard for three hours, eat lunch, then Nat spends the afternoon teaching me other skills that SHIELD agents need to know, like different languages, computer skills. I already knew French pretty well from taking it in middle school and high school, but now I’m learning German, Russian, and Chinese.  
“How do you say shit in German?” I ask Nat, one afternoon.  
She rolls her eyes and keeps telling me about German participles.  
“Aw, come on! If I want to looks super convincing when posing for some German person, I need to know how to curse in case I trip over my expensive dress,” I pout, slumping down in my seat.  
“Not falling for it,” Nat laughs.


	10. Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this suuuper short chapter. I'll make up for it next time.

It’s been three months since the battle of New York. Most of my time is spent with Alex now, training. She’s amazing. Absolutely amazing.  
Another thing that Banner found out, is that she has a mental capacity almost twice that of your normal teenager, or human. That explains why she’s so good at hacking, and why she learns so fast. By school records, she’s been taking French for four years, and she’s fluent. She can tell you just about anything. And she’s already passable in German and Russian. We’re still working on Chinese though.  
“Again,” I order.  
Alex brings her staff around and meets mine. She whirls around, long hair flying. I love the red and blue tips.   
I duck under her staff and hit her in the back. Alex falls, laughing, and rolls over onto her back.  
“This is fun!” she smirks and gets up.  
I don’t say anything, and laugh, before Alex repeats the move again.  
“Drill this into your head,” I say, “You don’t know what weapons you’re going to have access to on your missions, so you need to know how to use all of them.”  
Most of my time is spent training Alex now. It’s good, helps me recuperate from the Battle of New York. The other Avengers have dispersed. Thor has gone back to Asgard, Steve and Clint are on missions, Tony keeps slipping in and out, being busy with meetings mostly, and Banner has gone back to one of his private labs.  
The gun goes off twice, each bullet buried a few centimeters from the bullseye.  
“You need to work on handling the recoil from the gun,” I say, adjusting Alex’s hand position, “Your shooting will be more precise if you can handle it.”  
She’s getting stronger every day, faster. Again and again, Alex surprises me. It’s getting kind of annoying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy, it's even short than I thought, sorry guys!


	11. Alex

Five months. It’s been five months. Time’s flying as I train with Nat. All the Avengers are gone, so I have pretty much no one to tease.  
She still won’t tell me how to say shit in any language other than English. Seriously. I don’t understand why.  
We are walking in New York. Nat had on dark sunglasses, which she always has on when we go out. We walk into Starbucks and sit down.  
I order a mocha, as I always do, and dump a bunch of sugar into it.  
“How do you drink that?” Nat wrinkles her nose, before sipping her black coffee.  
“It’s good,” I smile and take a big sip.  
“You’re going to have a heart attack someday.”  
I laugh and roll my eyes.  
“So what do you notice today?” Nat asks this every day.  
“That black haired woman is ordering a decaf mocha, like she does every other day. She’s dressed like she’s going running. And that man in the suit over there, he’s working, and arguing with his boss, like he’s always doing,” I scan the room while talking.  
Before I can speak again, I hear a whistling noise, and a dart buries itself in Nat’s neck. She gives a strangled gasp, before collapsing.  
I run over to her and shake her, but she’s out cold.  
“Step away from the Widow,” says a voice.  
I look up at a man with a mask on his face, holding a gun. Someone screams.  
“I can’t do that, this woman is my friend,” I glare at him.  
“If you don’t move, I’ll shoot,” the man grunts.  
I click a hidden button on the heel of my boot, and pull an small handgun from the compartment, before standing and clicking off the safety.  
“The moment you shoot me, I’ll shoot you,” I raise the gun.  
“If you shoot me, I’ll shoot some of the civilians in this room,” the man threatens, turning his gun towards a pair of women sitting together.  
I leap forward, faster than eyes can follow, disarming the man in an instant. I throw the gun under the table and shout, “Get out of here, people, go!”  
Everyone in the Starbucks runs for the exit and I attack the man. But now he’s ready for me. I duck as he kicks at me, and bounce off a table, landing on his shoulders. I pull a knife from under my pant leg and hold it to his neck.  
“Why did you shoot her with that dart?” I growl.  
“I was ordered to.”  
I press the knife closer to his throat, “By who?”  
“I can’t tell you.”  
Nat has weapons on her. I know she does. Does she have any knockout darts? I have to bring this guy in so SHIELD can find out who he is.  
The wall is right behind me. I kick off of it and flip over the man’s head, landing right next to Nat. I pull the dart from her neck and her eyes flutter. I slide the dart into the compartment in my shoe and close it.  
“Come one, wake up!” I whisper. The man’s already on top of me. I duck under a punch and drop kick him, putting a boot on his chest. He’s clearly not a very good fighter. Probably was supposed to rely on his gun.  
His gun.  
It’s not a standard model, I’ve never seen one like it. And I’ve had to study a lot of weapons for Nat, but I’ve never seen a gun like that.  
“Alex? Alex, what’s going on?” I hear a voice in my ear.  
My earpiece. How could I have been so dumb. I totally forgot about it.  
“Romanoff’s vitals are going all over the place,” Tony says.  
“We have a slight problem,” I say, trying to hold down the man. For such a bad fighter, he’s pretty strong.  
“What is it?”  
“A man showed up at the Starbucks on fifth, and knocked Nat unconscious. He knows who she is. Is anyone available, because I could use some backup. This guy’s really strong,” I explain.  
“I’ll send some-“ Before Tony can finish, the man leaps up and pins me beneath him, while reaching for the gun.  
“Let me go, you son of a-“  
I feel a sharp prick in my shoulder, and look over to see a dart sticking from it.  
“You’re coming with me too,” he growls. I reach for my heel as my vision goes blurry. But I can’t reach it.  
“Not a chance,” I growl, and with enormous effort, I push him off of me.  
“What the hell?” Nat says, standing.  
The man leaps up and dives for the gun, just as Nat does the same, and I shout, “Don’t let him have it!”  
I guess there’s something in me that is keeping me awake. But I can’t get up. Nat kicks the gun away and attacks the man.  
Suddenly, the window behind me explodes, and Iron Man zooms through, stopping beside me.  
“Don’t move,” a bunch of guns appear from his suit, all pointing at the man.  
My body decides to take that moment to shut down, and the world goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just came up with the timetable for this book I'm doing. I am going to try to extend it into a series all the way to and beyond Infinity War. That will take a while. I also wanted to put in some notes on Alex's age.
> 
> (16 in Battle of NY)
> 
> Bk. 1: Avenger's Apprentice
> 
> ends right before Captain America: the Winter Soldier (she's 18) it skips around a lot
> 
> Bk. 2: ???
> 
> Starts right before Age of Ultron. There's a gap of about half a year because Alex didn't have a part in Winter Soldier (she's still 18). Ends after Civil War, having skipped the year between Age of Ultron and Civil War (she's 19)
> 
> Bk. 3: ???
> 
> Starts a few months before Infinity War, though the timing skips around a lot again (she's 21) ends at the end of Infinity War
> 
> Bk. 4: ???
> 
> Starts at the beginning of Endgame (an unknown amount of time has passed)


	12. Alex

I stand behind the hidden window, staring at the man as Nat interrogates him. He admitted that his name is Jackson Mariano. He’s from Russia, even though he has an impeccable American accent on his English. Why does everything have to go back to freaking Russia. Everything.  
“Who do you work for?” Nat asks, stalking around his chair.  
“Why would I tell you?” He glares at her.  
Nat swings a quick punch, and his head snaps back. Mariano clearly doesn’t have much capacity for torment, because he’s already told Nat so much, and we’ve only been here for an hour.  
“I won’t tell,” I gasps.  
Nat kicks and punches him until he groans, “Okay. I work for a man by the name of Melevna.”  
I go ridged. Nat doesn’t react. She knows she can’t.  
“Who?” she feints confusion.  
“He was a Russian scientist. James Melevna is his name.”  
Before anyone can stop me, I burst into the room, and an at Mariano’s throat, “What do you know about my father?” I growl.  
“You’re the girl,” he smiles boldly, and I slap him.  
“Tell me!” I shout.  
“He’s looking for you. Sends his love,” Mariano is still smiling, and I punch him in the throat.  
“Stop it, Alex!” Nat pulls me away from him.  
“We have to find my father! He’s still out there!” I hiss, struggling against her.  
Nat pushes me out of the room, “Calm down, and let me interrogate him. You have to focus on your training.”  
“Oh, the little Melevna child is working with SHIELD,” Mariano laughs maniacally, “Your daddy will be very cross.”  
I spit at his feet and slam the door behind me.  
In a workout room, I’m hitting a punching bag as hard as I can, when I hear the door click open and closed behind me.  
I look up for an instant at Rogers, before punching again.  
“I’ve found that punching is a good way to get your anger out,” Rogers says, coming up before me to hold the punching bag still.  
I don’t say anything.  
“Boy, you have some strong punches,” Rogers grunts.  
“I was… experimented on as… a small child… remember?” I say between punches.  
Rogers is silent for a minute.  
“Rogers,” I stop, and look at him, “You don’t have to pretend to care.”  
“Call me Steve,” he says, “And I’m not pretending.”  
I don’t respond.  
After Steve walks out, I go into the hallway. I’m about to walk into the kitchen when I hear voices.  
“This is serious,” says a voice. I think it’s Nick Fury.  
“We can’t just let that man roam free, he’s homicidal, and a Soviet,” Stark’s voice is urgent.  
Barton, the regular name of Hawkeye, speaks, “How will we find him. We don’t even know where he is.”  
“We use the girl as bait,” Fury grunts.  
“No,” Nat throws back, “She’s just a kid. We can’t use her as bait. She hasn’t even completed her training.”  
“From how she handled the situation yesterday, I think she is trained enough to handle Level 1. You keep training her, Romanoff, but SHIELD can send her on missions,” I almost gasp as Fury says this.  
“Are you sure?” Nat asks.  
There’s a scraping sound, probably as Fury shifts in his chair, “The question is, are you sure, agent Romanoff.”  
Someone sucks in a breath.  
“I’ll go tell her,” Nat says.  
I duck down the hall and reach the elevator in an instant. Quickly, I press the number of the floor where my new room is, and the door closes.  
When the door opens, I dash down the hall to my room, as fast as I can. I pull up a holoscreen and start searching the web for Jackson Mariano.  
There’s a knock at the door a few moments later, and Nat steps in.  
“I’m just trying to find anything else about Mariano,” I say, pulling up another search browser, “Criminal records, birth records, anything.”  
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Nat sits on the bed. My room’s still pretty boring, gray walls, queen sized bed with a fuzzy comforter, desk with a built-in holographic screen, like the one Tony has. One wall is all window, looking out over New York.  
“Why,” I turn towards her, painting a look of confusion on my face.  
Nat squinted at me for a moment, as if she could tell that I knew, before saying, “You’re going to make Level 1.”  
“What’s Level 1?” That wasn’t a lie. I don’t actually know what Level 1 is.  
“You are going to be a SHIELD agent. You won’t have access to a lot of information, but you will go on missions, when we’re not training. But no solo missions. Not for a long time.”  
I gap at her. Even if I knew it was going to happen, it’s still so amazing to become a SHIELD agent.  
“You’re going to be debriefed about your first mission in a few minutes,” Nat smiles, but frowns, “And no, you’re not going to be taking your clothes off. Don’t you dare make a joke about that.”  
I roll my eyes.  
“Alright, Miss Melevna. Or should I say, Agent Melevna,” Fury says as I sit down.  
“Please call me Agent Melevna,” I giggle, “It sounds so James Bond.”  
Fury sighs, “Please limit the pop culture references in future.”  
“Yes sir,” I mock a salute, “So, what’s the mission?”  
“We need you to go to Russia.”  
“Are you serious?” I slouch back in my chair.  
“We have a very dangerous man to catch,” Steve says. All the Avengers are here.  
“My father,” I pretend to guess, “He’s still out there. And you need me to be your bait.”  
“Agent Romanoff will be accompanying you,” Fury inclines his head towards Nat, who nods curtly.  
“What do we do?” I ask.  
Fury says, “Find him, infiltrate his facility, contact the Avengers team. They’ll take it from there. I trust Agent Romanoff has taught you some Russian.”  
“да сэр,” I nod. Yes sir. “When do we leave?”  
“Now.”


	13. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My school blocked this site so I probably won't be updating as often.

After packing a few bags, we head towards Russia in a private jet. It’s sleek and modern inside, with a SHIELD agent, flight attendant, serving Diet Coke in crystal glasses.  
Stark showed me how to compact down my staff, so it would fit in my suitcase. It’s not with me right now, but I have a handgun and a knife in my boot. Just in case. Nat has weapons on her as well, though I’m not sure where.  
It’s a long flight, overnight across the Northern Atlantic. I’ve never been on a plane before. They’re not as fun as they seem. I suppose a private jet is probably better than your average plane though. They give you tiny bags of pretzels.  
When we touch down in Stalingrad, I’m still wide awake. I haven’t slept a wink.  
Before we get off, Nat helps me pin my hair up to hide the brilliant red and blue ends and I put in colored contact lenses. We even henna freckles on my face. I can’t let any of my fath- James Melevna’s lackeys recognize me.  
SHIELD had some of their best hackers, not me I guess, find Melevna’s system and get us a job at his facility. It’s a few miles outside of the city, and highly protected.  
At the gates, two Russian guards search the van we’re riding in. They don’t find any weapons, and a glare from Nat stops them from patting us down.  
“So you’re the new secretaries,” one says, in Russian.  
“Yes,” Nat says, “I’m Natalia Petrov, and this is my younger sister, Sophia.”  
The guards let us through.  
“That was so easy,” I whisper once we’re through the gates.  
“It’s not over yet,” Nat says.  
The compound is boring, nondescript gray, with soldiers marching through the rainy parking lots, filled with vans and other vehicles.  
We get out of the car, and hurry inside, getting out of the rain as fast as we can.  
It’s his office. There’s a golden plaque on the door. James Melevna. My father. I suppress the rage that boils up inside me.  
“Don’t you dare go off and blow our cover, Agent Melevna,” Fury says through my earpiece, “I can see your heartrate climbing.”  
“I’m fine,” I growl, as Nat knocks on the door.  
I hear footsteps, and the door opens slowly.  
James Melevna is an older man, with shaggy salt and pepper hair, and a sparse beard. He’s tall and burly, with a disgruntled expression on his face.  
“I wasn’t expecting visitors,” he grunts.  
“We’re your new secretaries,” Nat says in flawless Russian, “Well, I am. This is my younger sister Sophia. She’s sort of my intern.”  
“Ah, I was wondering when you would arrive,” then he switches to highly accented English, and my heart skips a beat, “Natasha Romanoff.”  
Shit.  
Suddenly, guards burst from both sides of the hallway. I burst into action, bouncing off the wall and kicking a guard in the chest. I’m dimly aware of my father grabbing Nat, but she kicks him between the legs, and he drops her with a groan.  
“What’s happening?” Barton asks in my earpiece. He must have taken over for Fury.  
“We’ve been compromised,” I gasp, ducking between punches and disarming as many of the guards as I can. I can’t let them shoot us.  
“Somehow, they knew we were coming,” Nat’s hurried voice cuts through. I look over for a moment to see her similarly fighting the guards.  
I duck under another punch and punch a guard in the throat, roll between one’s legs, and kick him from behind. But there are so many.  
I backed up, until I hit someone.  
“Really not your average vacation,” I grunt at Nat.  
“Nope. But we can take them,” she kicks a guard away, hits another with her batons, which came from nowhere.  
“Together?”  
“Until the end.”  
I bounce off Nat’s shoulders, downing three guards.  
Someone grabs my leg, and I fall, stars exploding before my eyes as my head hits the ground.  
“You can’t win.”  
It’s James Melevna.  
I try to stand, but he picks me up, and holds me away from him, pulling a knife from his belt.  
“Surrender, or she dies,” he says.  
Nat freezes, her eyes darting from him, to me, to the knife.  
I struggle against my father’s grasp, but he doesn’t let go.  
“Don’t,” I manage to get out, before Nat nods solemnly and throws down her batons. Then something hits my head, and everything goes black.


	14. Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some minor and non-graphic description of torture in this chapter.

Fury ordered me to keep Alex safe. I’ve surrendered us both, probably to die.  
After the man knocks Alex out and a guard drags her away, they take me to a cell. I let them tie me to a chair.  
“Why did they send you?” Alex’s father growls at me, stalking across the room. I hate calling him that.  
“I won’t tell you,” I look away from Melevna.  
“Tell me,” black spots dance across my vision as he punches my cheek.  
“No.”  
With that, he punches me again, and kicks me in the stomach. I groan as my head snaps back.  
“Tell me,” Melevna growls again, and pulls my hair.  
“You can’t torture me,” I look him in the eye.  
“You don’t know what pain is.”  
He stalks across the room to a rickety table, and takes a syringe.  
“This is a drug specifically designed to induce pain,” Melevna stalks over to me, and I struggle against him as he injects the drug into my arm.  
For a moment, there is nothing. Then fiery pain explodes through my body, and I bite back a scream.  
“Tell me!” through the veil of pain, I feel Melevna slap me. It seems dull in comparison. “Tell me or your friend dies.”  
The world seems to slow, and I manage to choke out, “I work for SHIELD,” before everything goes black.


	15. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some more torture in this chapter, just btw.

I wake in a dimly lit cell, tied to a chair.  
Nat is across from me, her head lolling back. She’s still unconscious.  
At some point in the fight, my hair must have fallen out, and there’s a roughly bandaged cut on my leg. My earpiece is gone.  
“Nat!” I whisper. She jerks awake, and stares at me for a moment, eyes wild.  
“Calm down,” I hiss, looking around. There’s nothing else in the cell, except a steel door. The bare lightbulb flickers.  
“Sorry,” she says, “What happened?”  
“I guess they knocked us out and dragged us here,” I stop for a moment and think, “Why didn’t you just let him kill me?”  
Nat sighs, “Fury ordered me not to let anything happen to you.”  
“Figures.”  
“I woke up in a different cell before this, and well…” Nat trails off and stares into space.  
“Oh.” I try not to think of the implications. We’ve been caught. How will we get out? Will we get out?  
I jump as the cell door slams open and he stalks in. James Melevna. My father.  
“Hello ladies,” he says in English.  
I glare at him.  
“So,” he steps closer to me and I flinch as he trails his fingers across my cheek, “I know that we have a lovely Black Widow in captivity, but who is this?”  
“No one of consequence,” I growl.  
“On the contrary, прекрасная дама.” Russian for lovely lady. “I would very much like to know who you are. I can assume you work for SHIELD, along with your friend.”  
“I won’t tell you anything,” I hiss.  
My fath- you know what, I’m just going to call him Porky Pig, smiles, “I’m sure you can be persuaded.”  
He smiles again and goes out into the hallway for a moment. He comes back in carrying a syringe.  
“This lovely serum, is very fun, yes? It causes much pain, don’t you agree, мой паук,” he looks at Nat as he calls her his spider.  
“You sick bastard!” I shout, straining against my bonds.  
“Enjoy.”  
He sticks the serum into my arm.  
I scream as pain explodes before my eyes, and I feel fire coursing through me.  
“Don’t tell him!” I manage to shout through the pain. I can see Nat dimly through the black spots in my vision. She hangs her head.  
“Her name is Mariah Larsen,” Nat says, making up a name on the spot.   
“So much for so little,” Porky sticks another needle in my arm and the pain fades. I slump back, gasping for air.  
“Now, I know who sent you.”  
Nat looks up in alarm.  
“You’ve found something. A secret that was meant to be kept.”  
“What?” I feint confusion.  
“You know what I talk of,” Porky chuckles darkly, “You have found моя дочь, Alexandra.”  
I involuntarily gasp.  
“And I suppose you have her locked up,” Porky looks bored.  
Nat glares at him, “Actually, she directed us to you of her own free will. And she’s part of SHIELD now.”  
Porky slaps me, and my head snaps back, “You lie.”  
Okay, I think I’m just going to call him Melevna again.  
“She is telling the truth,” Nat lets on.  
Melevna punches Nat, and pulls a knife from his belt, “I have no use for one of you, anymore.”  
“No!” I scream as he levels the knife.  
Nat struggles against her bonds. I can see a thousand scenarios running through her mind, but nothing can help her get away from him.  
“Fine!” I say, “I’ll tell you who I really am!”  
Melevna turns, interest peaked. Nat shakes her head.  
“Your daughter Alexandra did help us. And she’s right here. I’m her.”  
Melevna seems surprised, but quickly recovers, “Ah, how the plot thickens. Don’t you think, fräulein,” he looks at Nat as he says it.  
“You’re Hydra,” is all she says.  
“Took you long enough,” he chuckles and does a Nazi salute.  
“Hydra,” I think on the word, “Didn’t that like spawn from the Nazis or something?”  
“Indeed,” Melevna smiles cruelly.  
“And what are you going to do with us,” Nat growls.  
“That depends,” Melevna turns towards me, “Is there a language that Romanoff cannot speak but you can?”  
I think for a moment. What ever he wants to say to me in private, Nat has to hear it. “Swahili, she doesn’t speak Swahili. I learned some in school.”  
Behind Melevna, Nat winks. He nods, not noticing.  
“I use you to… stop SHIELD,” Melevna declares in passable Swahili. I learned some from Nat.  
“And if I don’t want to?” I raise any eyebrow.  
Melevna thinks for a moment, “I will let your friend free.”  
“And what do I do?” I ask.  
“You let me,” he switches to Russian for a word, not being able to say it in Swahili, “Experiment, on you.”  
I flinch.  
“You will be my spy and stop SHIELD with my help.”  
I switch back to English, “You will let Romanoff go free?”  
“Yes.”


	16. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at 100 reads! That's so amazing! Thanks to everyone who is reading this story and giving me kudos! Please comment below on your favorite part!

Melevna lets Nat go, not knowing what she knows. She’ll go back to SHIELD and tell them. But I have to stay here. And face my worst nightmares.  
“I do like your hair,” Melevna says, touching the red and blue tips, “It is some of the colors of the Russian flag.”  
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask, flinching away from his touch.  
“As those SHIELD agents have no doubt told you, I enhanced you as a child. I plan to finish that, as you are no longer small,” Melevna’s eyes light up.  
“But I’m already really strong and good at fight,” I try to say.  
“Perfection is a dainty art. I have not reached perfection with you yet. Come with me to my lab. I have very good plans.”  
I gulp and follow him.  
Nat’s gone. She’s in a plane on her way back to New York. She’s fine. I can run now, I can foil his plan now. I can bring this laboratory down on him.  
“You’re not going to do anything to me.”  
“What?” Melevna turns around, his eyes dangerous.  
“Did hear me right, Porky? I’m not going anywhere, or doing anything with you.”  
I spring into action, and dropkick Melevna. He leaps back up, surprisingly agile for such a large man and punches me. I fall backwards against the wall.  
“You killed Naomi Melevna. You killed my mother. Why?” I back away from him as he turns on me.  
“She was in my way. She wouldn’t let me experiment on you,” Melevna swings another punch, and I duck.  
“How could you? You loved her?”  
“Our relationship was never one of love. We as geneticists agreed that our children would be strong and smart individuals. But when I started to experiment on people, she objected. She got in my way. There was nothing else I could do,” he seemed almost sad.  
I round on him, “You don’t deserve pity. You’re an awful man and I hate you. You’ll never be my father.”  
“Do be quiet,” Melevna looks bored, “When I’m finished, you’ll be loyal to me.”  
“No!”  
I dodge out of the way as he tries to grab for me. How can he be so fast.  
“You forget things, самый дорогой. You’re not the only one I experimented on,” Melevna pulls me towards him. I struggle but I can’t get free.  
“You did this to yourself too,” I growl.  
I struggle out of his grasp and try to kick him, but he pushes me back into the wall, and my head cracks against the concrete. I don’t remember anything after that.


	17. Natasha

“He’s got her! That bastard’s got Alex!” I shout at Fury, “We have to do something!”  
“This is a hostage situation,” Fury argues, “We can’t do anything.”  
“We don’t know what this man can, and is planning to,” Steve says from his seat. All the Avengers are here.  
My mind races, trying to think of what they said, “He is planning to bring down SHIELD. He wants to experiment on Alex, make her ‘better.’ He needs her to make his plan work.”  
“We can’t just go in there,” Tony leans back in his chair.  
I slam my fist into the table, “We don’t know what’s happening. What he’s doing to her! We have to save her. We’re the freaking Avengers! If anyone can stop that man, we can!”  
“You know Alex,” Clint says, playing with his bow, “She can fend for herself.”  
“Fury, you’ve stopped me for more than a month on this. You even sent me on a different mission to try to take my mind off this. We have to stop this man!” I round on Fury, glaring at him.  
“No.”  
“You told me that nothing could happen to her,” I growl.  
“You’re here to protect the world, not one girl, Agent Romanoff. We don’t know who or what is in that base. We need more information. But, we can’t send in anyone undercover, they would know we were coming, as they did this time,” Fury surmises this.  
Steve leans forward, “So there’s a mole in SHIELD.”  
“I’ve gathered,” Fury grunts.  
“They must be high up,” Clint looks up at the ceiling, like he does whenever he’s thinking.  
Everyone nods.  
“I will find a way to stop Melevna,” I warn Fury, before stalking out.  
“Don’t do anything illegal,” Tony calls after me.  
“We’re way past that,” I throw at him, already in the hallway.  
A few moments later, one of the ventilation shaft entrances falls to the ground, and Clint leaps out.  
“So we’re doing this,” he folds his arms.  
“How’d you guess?” I raise an eyebrow.  
“With you all the way, Romanoff,” Steve says from behind me.  
Tony steps up behind him as I turn,” Just for the record, I was never a part of this.”  
“When thy Midgardians need to be helped, the might of my hammer is with you, oh fellow Avengers,” Thor says. I can’t help but think of how Alex would mock him.  
“Let’s suit up!” Steve smiles.  
We all turn to walk away, when someone says, “Wait!”  
Banner walks up to me, “We are doing this then?”  
I nod.


	18. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG guys! Thanks for all the support! Special shout-out to M1dn1ght_Star for all the funny comments!

“You don’t need to be afraid,” a voice says from behind me.  
I turn towards the woman. She has long dark hair, smiles as she sees me.  
“My beautiful girl,” her accent is Russian, like Melevna’s.  
The dream shifts, and I’m holding a gun. I try to throw it away, but my arms won’t listen. I slowly raise it, leveling it at the panicked woman’s head, and pull the trigger.  
I gasp, eyes fluttering open.  
“Finally,” mutters a bored voice.  
I groan, as I try to move my head, and feel a deep aching pain.  
“What have you done to me!” I growl.  
Melevna smiles as he looms into view.  
“A nurse will tend to you until the next experiment, Alexandra. I’m sure you’re looking forward to it,” he chuckles darkly, and walks away. I hear the door open, and Melevna converses with someone in low tones, before the door closes again.  
“Hello Alex,” a voice says in Russian.  
I look up at the dark- haired maid. She winks, before putting on a mask of indifference.  
“Hawk’s here as well,” she says cryptically, logging onto the computer by my bed.  
I take a moment to think about it. Hawk. Hawkeye? Barton.  
He must be posing as someone as well. I wouldn’t have recognized Nat if she hadn’t said my name. I guess SHIELD has some technology that’s good for something after all.  
“How did you-“ I try to ask in English.  
“Play along now,” Nat says in Russian. She picks up a syringe, using the movement to tilt her head ever so slightly towards the corner. A camera.  
“I’m gonna call you…” I pretend to think for a moment, “Raccoon. I mean that makeup is just tragic. Really tragic.”  
“Stay still!” Nat struggles to hold my arm, as I try to move out of her reach.  
“Come on Raccoon, just put the needle down, and let me go. We could be best friends you and I. Tony Stark, you know him right? He showed me a great shwarma place in New York City. We could go there and eat shwarma. What ever that is,”   
Nat finally pins me, trying to stifle her laughter, and, away from the camera, mouths “sorry,” before sticking the syringe in my arm. Everything goes black.


	19. Alex

When I wake up, Barton is in the room. At least I think it’s him. It’s someone I don’t know, which I can only assume to be Barton.  
My body still hurts, and I groan as I sit up.  
“Who…” I manage to get out before he winks at me.  
He hands me a folded sheet of paper, “Your blood test.”  
On it are three words. One more day.  
I nod and hand the paper back to Barton. He puts it into a pocket of his scrubs. It’s really funny to see Barton in scrubs.  
He gives me a tray of food and then leaves. I scarf down the bread and soup and drink the water. It smells odd.  
Drugged, my mind decides.  
I don’t drink the rest.  
“Good morning, Alexandra,” Melevna says as he comes through the door. I can’t bring myself to call him anything else.  
“What did you do to me?” I growl.  
“Just a few upgrades, darling,” he smiles wickedly.  
“Tell me what you did!” I shout and my voice echoes around the room.  
“You will be even faster and stronger once you heal, dearest. And there are a few other things that won’t appear yet.”  
“What?” I shout.  
Melevna pats me on the head, like I’m a dog, and leaves without another word. I slam my fists down on the mattress and the bed shakes.  
The lights go out, and I lay in the near darkness, the only light coming from the computer screen.  
I wonder what would be different if I had been raised with Melevna.

I wake again a few hours later. The lights are still off, when Nat slides in, still disguised.  
“It’s time,” she says, cryptically. She gives me a couple shots and checks my blood pressure.  
At my questioning look about giving me the shots, she says, “To keep you stable while you heal.”  
She turns the computer screen away from the camera, and types on it, Designed by SHIELD, they speed up your healing process. You are still sore, but you’re healed. You can do as many roundhouse kicks, and back handsprings as you want.  
Nat deletes the words, and smiles at me.  
Suddenly, alarms start going off.  
Bruce, and Thor, Nat mouths.  
A few moments later, Melevna walks in.  
“Get her out of here!” he orders Nat.  
She helps me up, and asks, “What is happening.”  
Melevna ignores the question. Nat sighs, and pulls a gun from her shirt.  
“Don’t move or I shoot.”  
“I knew you were different,” Melevna freezes.  
Nat pulls off her wig, and her voice changes as she pulls the disguise technology from her face. Suddenly, she’s Natasha Romanoff again.  
Her red hair is long and straight now.  
“I like the new hair,” I say. She nods.  
“Let us go,” Nat orders. Melevna stands aside and I follow Nat out.  
“That was too easy,” I walk beside her.  
“This isn’t the end.”  
Nat hands me a gun as we walk.  
“You staff is with Clint, I believe,” she explains.  
I level my gun as some of Melevna’s men run down the hallway. Nat and I take them out together.  
I try my best to hurt them, and not kill them. Every shot is deadly accurate.  
“How is my aim so much better?” I marvel as we run down another hallway.  
“I’m not sure,” Nat holds her gun out in front of her, “Steve and Tony should come crashing in her at any moment.”  
I nod.  
We cross another intersection, and I see a burst of lighting ahead. Nat and I come out into a large room, full of computers. There are a bunch of people in black clothes fighting Thor, Barton, and Hulk.  
“Awesome!” I cry.  
Part of the ceiling implodes, and Stark flies through in his Iron Man armor. Steve follows close behind.  
“How are those people fighting them?” I dodge Cap’s shield.  
“They must be more of Melevna’s experiments,” Nat sounds disgusted.  
We wade into the battle.  
“Catch!” Barton shouts, and I grab my staff as it flies through the air.  
“I may have made some improvements,” Tony admits as he zooms past, blasting some of the people in black.  
I pull my staff apart and the middle section, slides along with it. Then I press a button on each of the swords. They compress and become blunt metal batons.  
“Fun!” I say, and duck under a punch. I swing one baton at an experiment, no I think they’re like ninjas, and it glances off their shoulder. With a roundhouse kick, the ninja drops, and I hit them across the head with a baton. I push my staff back together, to bring it around and slap it across another ninja’s back.  
“Do you like my friends?” Melevna calls in English, and everyone in the room freezes. The Avengers move towards each other, and glare up at Melevna, where he stands on the raised platform in the middle of the room.  
I roll my eyes.  
“You will let me take Alexandra, or my friends will take you apart limb by limb.  
“I’ll never go with you,” I snarl.  
“You don’t have a choice,” Melevna takes out a remote, “I have many men in New York City, ready to start killing people in the streets. If you don’t come with me… there will be no more New York City.”  
“We can’t let you do that,” Nat calls.  
“Don’t move buddy, or I’ll shoot,” Stark points his metal arms at Melevna, and a bunch of guns appear on his shoulders.  
“Very well,” Melevna looks bored.  
The Avengers huddle together, and I walk towards them.  
“We’ll never get to New York in time!” Barton says.  
“I could go now,” Stark offers.  
“You won’t get there in time,” Nat and I say at the same time.  
“What do we do?” Steve asks.  
“SMASH!” Hulk claps his fists together.  
Stark presses a button on his helmet and it disappears, “We need to regroup. Do you think you can hold him off?” He looks at me.  
“Aye, aye captain,” I salute, and walk towards Melevna.  
“Lay off your minions,” I say, “I’ll come with you.”  
“Really.”  
I hear Iron Man take off behind me. Melevna narrows his eyes.  
The ground shudders as Hulk leaps, and I think Thor uses his hammer to fly off as well.  
“We will go to New York to defeat the Avengers,” I know what they are doing, Alexandra,” Melevna stares at me.  
“What?” I feint confusion.  
“You aren’t going to come with me, I know. But I can fix that,” Melevna steps closer to me.  
“Stay the hell away from me,” I growl.  
Melevna growls, “You will help me, or I will kill every person in New York.”  
I have no intention of helping him.  
“Fine,” I hold up my hands, “Let’s go.”


	20. Clint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay dogfights! Let me know what you think of Clint's perspective!

The Quinjet speeds off as we all clamber on. I can see Tony flying beside us, somewhere nearby.  
Nat looks back as we fly, back as the compound disappears.  
“You’ve never seemed to care about someone like Alex,” I step up beside her.  
“What’s that supposed to mean,” Nat snaps.  
“Come on, Nat, you know what I mean,” I looks over at her for a moment.  
“We’ll be fine.”  
“Will she be fine?” I ask.  
“Why do you care.”  
I pointedly look at her.  
Nat rolls her eyes.  
“How long until we get there?” she asks.  
“It’s on autopilot, but we’ll be over the North Atlantic in a moment.”  
Nat walks towards the front of the ship, “It’s taking far too long.”  
At the front, Steve is lounging on one of the pilot seats. I sit down beside him.  
Something beeps on the radar. I look down at the sonar and see three ships approaching.  
“Be prepared for some company,” Tony says in my earpiece.  
“Hold on tight,” I buckle in and click off the autopilot, “It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”  
“Get up,” Nat says to Steve.  
“Rude,” he wrinkles his nose at her and stands.  
Nat slides into the copilot seat and takes the controls.  
“On your left,” Tony says in my earpiece. He shoots past, followed by a jet plane. Melevna must have sent some distractions.  
“I’ll get the guns,” I say to Nat, “You keep this plane in the air.”  
I flick up the gun controls, and the controls come down from the ceiling.  
Another jet appears, and Tony shoots at it. I punch the guns and the air erupts before us as I hit one of the jets.  
“Watch it,” Tony says in my ear, soaring over to side.  
The sonar beeps again, “More ships approaching.”  
“We’ll be in New York in twenty minutes. Maximum speed,” Nat says.  
I lean forward to shoot at another plane. I hope Alex will meet us there.


	21. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Cardfight_By_Maple for the kudos! Thanks for reading!

I stand in the back of the jet plane, almost indistinguishable from the other warriors. They are all loyal to Melevna. I’m not. I tighten my grip on the staff that Melevna gave me. He says it’s better than my old staff. I have to pretend I’ll follow him.  
“Ten minutes until we land,” says that pilot. Melevna grunts. He’s not doing anything helpful.  
Thin slats of light go by as we fly, briefly illuminating parts of the plane.  
“Starting descent,” the pilot reports.  
Melevna stands, “When we land, you range across the city. If the Avengers arrive, go for them, otherwise, cause general chaos and harm the civilians. The Avengers won’t win, and if they are nearly there, I bomb the city.”  
The soldiers nod. I don’t.  
“You will go with the rest of my soldiers,” Melevna looks at me, “Don’t even try to go to your friends. There’s a tracking chip in your arm. I’ll know if you do.”  
He taps my shoulder lightly and I flinch.  
“Almost to the ground sir,” the pilot reports.  
“Good,” Melevna smiles.  
I follow the other soldiers as they turn towards the hatch. It opens as the ship comes in for a landing.  
The soldiers start jumping out, and I follow them. I blink against the bright sunlight, and see similar, unmarked jet planes, flying across the city, spraying gunfire onto the streets below. I can hear the screams of New Yorkers fleeing the gunfire.  
Boy, this city gets attacked a lot.  
Melevna steps out into the sunlight and holds a hand to his ear, “Air squadrons, disengage. The ground troops are moving in now.”  
“Do me proud,” Melevna glares at me.  
I turn away from him, and follow the soldiers, and they leap towards the fire escape of the building.  
“Bitch please,” I growl under my breath.  
As I leap down onto the ground, a familiar shape appears in the sky. Tony Stark.  
He shoots down at the soldiers on the ground, before disappearing down another street.  
I sigh. I have to warn the Avengers. But first, I need to get this chip out of my arm.  
I follow the soldiers, jogging down the street, before slipping off into an alley. I twist both ends of the staff to reveal the blades.  
I carefully cut away my sleeve. I poke at my arm, until I feel a hard bump. It’s not very deep.  
I look around. There’s a car on fire across the street. I run across the street quickly and push my blade into the fire for a few moments. I need to sterilize it.  
Who knew watching Grey’s Anatomy would come in handy later.  
More soldiers are coming. I run back across the street and sink to my knees in the alley. I steel myself against the pain and press the blade against my arm.  
I stifle a scream as I cut into my arm, the blade still hot.  
The sharp edge hits something solid. I cut around it. Hot blood runs down my arm.  
I groan in pain as I put my hand into the wound, and slowly extract the chip. I rip a strip of fabric from my severed sleeve and wrap it around the wound.  
I throw the chip into the street and run.  
The jarring motion reverberates through my wounded arm, and I grind my teeth together.  
Where are they. I have to find the Avengers and warn them.  
As I turn down another street, I hear a similar shout. Nat.  
“Need some help?” I ask as I round the corner. I leap up onto the hood of a car, and push my blades back into the staff. Nat looks up from where she stands, shooting at some soldiers.  
Barton in nearby, with his bow, and Steve jumps off a car, his shield flashing around him.  
“I knew you would come,” Steve says.  
“What happened?” Nat’s eyes widen, “You’re covered in blood.”  
“I’m fine,” I say gruffly, lashing out to hit a soldier with my staff.  
“I came to warn you guys,” I say, running back to hide behind a car as a jet sweeps overhead, opening fire on the streets. Clearly Melevna has no regard for his soldiers.  
“What?” Barton ducks behind the car as well. Nat follows him.  
“I came to warn you. We need to find Melevna and stop him. He’s going to bomb the city if you guys defeat his soldiers.”  
“My god, this guy keeps getting worse,” Barton growls.  
“You’re just realizing this now?” I ask.  
“Look out!” Steve’s voice comes from nearby. A small object falls on the ground before us.  
“Bomb!” Barton shouts. I run. The device detonates, and the shockwave hits me. I fall backwards, rolling over the rubble.  
“Shit!” I growl, sitting up slowly.  
“What the hell was that?” Nat sits up beside me.  
“Where did it come from?” Barton asks.  
He knows I’m here.  
“Son of a bitch.”  
Steve walks towards us, “Language.”  
“I don’t fucking care.”  
Nat laughs. Steve looks annoyed.  
“We need to find Melevna,” Barton says.  
I stand and take my staff from where I dropped it on the ground. But it’s not my staff.  
“I know how.”  
He must have put a tracker on the staff too. If I can find it, then I can reverse the connection, and maybe figure out where Melevna is, through whatever device he’s using to find me. I just need a computer.  
“Anyone got a computer?” I ask.  
“Why?” Nat looks confused.  
“You’re seriously questioning my motives?” I raise an eyebrow.  
Nay smirks, “Fine. There’s an online café down 15th street. It’s only a few blocks away.”  
Steve cuts in, always ready to give people orders, “Barton and I will defend the city from here. Natasha, you accompany Alex to find this café or whatever.”  
“Let’s go,” Nat says.  
We run through the streets, towards the café. I hope the computers will still work.  
Nat stops outside a building that is all glass fronted. Most of the windows are shattered. Some of the lights inside are still on.  
I step through the shattered window, into the building. Glass crunches beneath my feet as I step over the rubble.  
Computers. Some of the screens are still on.  
“Keep watch,” I plop down in one of the rolling office chairs, and clear the desk. I lay the staff down, and rip open the control panel.  
I can probably hotwire it to hook up to the computer. I pull the wires up from inside the control panel, and walk to the other side of the computer. Hopefully the mainframe isn’t fried. I pop open the panel on the back of the computer, and look around. I take a shard of glass from the floor and use it to sever the wires on the staff. I do the same with a few wires on the computer, and connect them. Nothing happens.  
“Come on,” I whisper, rubbing the wires together. Suddenly, there’s a crack and a spark, and the computer turns on.  
“Bingo.”  
The programming for the staff comes up after I log on. I didn’t actually know that it would work. Sure I’ve hotwired cars before, but never a staff to a computer. Same principle I guess.  
I pull through the programming, scanning with my eyes.  
“Um, Alex?” Nat’s voice comes from the door.  
“What?” I look up.  
“Hurry up, there’s more ships coming in,” she shouts.  
I turn back to the programming. An odd set of script catches my eye. Location programming. Bingo.  
I hack the system, even though the hacking capabilities of this computer are awful. I get past the firewall, which is not a very good one, because who would try to hack a staff. Most people wouldn’t even know that it had programming.  
Carefully, I reverse the programming, and upload it onto the search browser. Google maps comes up, with a location about three blocks away. And moving.  
I clip the wires on the staff that correspond to the location. It’ll put Melevna off the scent for now. But we have to find him.  
“Call your friends,” I say to Nat, “We need to stop Melevna. None of this will mean anything unless we prevent him from using that bomb.”  
Nat salutes me. I smile.


	22. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, sorry so much! Archive keeps glitching and putting the same chapter again and again! Ugh. But this is a new chapter! I will be starting a regular posting schedule, which I will hopefully follow, if I don't forget.  
> Thanks so much

“Tony, you keep fighting those jets in the air. Hulk, keep the soldiers contained and take out as many as you can. Clint, you keep trying to get civilians out of here. Steve and I will run interference while Alex takes on Melevna,” Nat orders. Tony nods and takes off. Hulk leaps off the top of the building after him. Clint smiles as Nat before shooting a grappling hook arrow off the side of the building and leaping off.  
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Nat asks.  
“I have to.”  
Melevna has set up shop a few buildings away. He doesn’t know where I am, but he’s trying to find me.  
“You ready?” Steve calls. Nat and I jog over to him, and line up beside him.  
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I say, and take a runner’s stance.  
“Let’s go!” Nat shouts, and we run.  
As we reach the edge of the roof, we boost ourselves up against the ledge and jump at the same time.  
There’s a feeling of weightlessness between the buildings. The fall seems to last forever, before we come crashing down on the next roof. Nat rolls as she lands. We keep running. Two buildings ahead, I can see Melevna again. His guards will know we’re here in a minute.  
Again, run, boost, jump.  
Someone shouts on the next roof.  
“Get down!” Steve cries, and we duck behind an electrical unit. Bullets ping off the metal.  
“What happens now?” I ask.  
Nat pulls her guns from her hip holsters, “Like I said, Steve and I will run interference, and you get to Melevna.”  
“Got it.”  
“As soon as I start shooting, go,” Nat orders.  
She turn, and starts shooting. Steve leaps up, and rolls behind another AC unit. I run, staying as low as I can.  
Bullets ping off the roof around me, as I jump between the buildings. My legs flail as I fall through the air.  
With a crash, I hit the fire escape, barely hanging onto the metal rails. I lift myself over the rail and push myself up against the building as someone shoots down into the alley. With a cry, they fall, probably as Nat shoots them.  
I climb the fire escape as fast as I can. When I get to the top, I peer over the edge of the roof. Melevna is in the center, some kind of device in front of him. His soldiers surround him, fighting with Nat and Steve.  
I step onto the roof.  
“Melevna!” I shout, “Father.”  
He turns slowly. For a moment, there’s surprise in his eyes, before he recovers.  
“You have come crawling back?” he smiles.  
“I would rather jump off a cliff,” I snarl.  
“Lovely,” Melevna smiles, and flicks his fingers at me. A bunch of soldiers run at me.  
I kick the first one back, and duck under a punch. With a shout, I flip around another’s shoulders, and pull myself up on their shoulders. I pull the staff apart, and click the button to turn the swords into batons. I swing one baton into the soldier’s head and leap off him to tackle another soldier.  
Nat appears in the fray, and shoots at the nearest soldier.  
“We always end up fighting together,” she says.  
“I can fend for myself you know,” I say, punching a soldier, and bringing my batons into another’s stomach, “I don’t need my SO fighting my battles.”  
“I’ll take care of these, you get Melevna. You’re the only one of us who can disable this bomb or whatever. Unless you want Tony to fly it through a portal again,” Nat shoots again, and drop kicks a soldier.  
“Fine,” I growl, and do another roundhouse kick before running out of the fray. A few follow me but I put my staff back together and hit them away.  
“Melevna!” I shout again. He glares at me.  
“Why don’t you just leave me alone,” he whines, and turns back to his machine.  
“You have to stop!”  
Melevna opens his arms, “Look around. You can’t stop me! I will destroy this city.”  
Barton, Stark, and the Hulk must have come to help. More soldiers are pouring in. Thor leaps down from the sky, and is immediately swallowed by the fighting.  
“You can’t do that. I won’t let you. The Avengers won’t let you!” I shout.  
“You’ve missed something very important, my dear. You’re not an Avenger. You’re not a superhero. You’re just a little girl. Little girls can’t do anything to save the world.”  
The fighting seems to stop. Everything almost freezes. I take a breath.  
“I don’t have to be an Avenger to kick your sorry ass,” I shout.


	23. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah yeah, I forgot to post yesterday, I know. I would promise not again, but you guys know I'll probably forget again.  
> Also, I'm really sorry for the plot twist and cliffhanger. Please don't cry.  
> Oops, probably spoiled too much there. He he.  
> I would also say that them crazy-ass betches stopped me from posting... but that's a lie. I just wanted to say betches. Betches, betches, betches. Yes, it's a teenage girl thing.  
> Please comment and vote! I mean, if you want to.

As I run for Melevna, he throws a punch and I duck.  
“You can’t win against me,” he growls.  
I’m gonna enjoy beating the shit out of this bastard.  
I duck under another punch and throw a kick at his stomach. He grabs my leg in midair and throws me to the ground. Stars explode before my eyes as I hit the hard concrete. I leap up before Melevna can kick me and punch his jaw. His head snaps back and he backs away.  
“You can’t win against m-“  
Before he can finish, I interrupt him, “Enough with the I can’t beat you, shit. It’s getting really annoying.”  
I punch him in the stomach, and kick him to the ground. I raise my staff above my head, and crack it down, but Melevna grabs it before it hits him and stands.  
“Could you just stay down,” I pant, “Maybe for a minute?”  
I whirl around and punch Melevna in the back before he can react. This time he does stay down, at least for the time being.  
I run to the console that he was working from. It’s still on and a clock counts down. I pop open the control panel and sift through the wires.  
Before I can do anything else, Melevna grabs me by my hair, and pulls me back towards him.  
“You can join your mother,” he growls, and pulls a gun from his belt.  
“No!” Nat shouts. She runs for me, and kicks Melevna away. He smiles at her.  
“вдова,” Melevna says. Nat’s eyes widen in confusion.  
Melevna starts laughing, slowly. “My dear Natasha. You don’t remember me?”  
Nat studies him for a moment, before gasping.  
“What?” I look between the two, confused.  
“I have wanted to do this for a very long time,” Melevna slowly raises the gun. But not at me.  
Nat’s eyes widen as Melevna pulls the trigger. She shouts and puts a hand to her stomach.  
“No!” my voice sounds muffled as I watch. Everything seems to slow down.  
Nat falls to her knees as Melevna shoots her again. She looks up at me, green eyes almost sorry.  
He shoots a third time, and Nat falls back as the bullet catches her shoulder.


	24. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the beauty of cliffhangers.

Barton shouts from somewhere nearby. He runs forward, and kneels beside Nat. I look back up at Melevna. He laughs, as I run towards him.  
“How could you!” I shout. I bring the staff onto his side. He grabs it and flips me over, pointing the gun at me. Before I can react, a familiar shield flies out of nowhere and hits the gun out of his hand. In a flash, Steve is there.  
He holds an arm down to me, “We fight together.”  
I grab onto his hand and he hauls me up.  
Stark appears on my other side, “Let’s finish this.”  
We leap into action, and come down on Melevna from all sides. While Steve keeps him busy, and Stark, Thor, and Hulk fend off his soldiers, I disarm the bomb. I’ll tell you a secret, I’ve never tried to disarm a bomb before.  
30 seconds before this place blows. There must be bombs across the city, waiting to blow in a chain reaction when this one does. I have to find the blue wire.  
Nat said, when she taught me to disarm a bomb, never cut the red wire. Find the blue wire, that will stop it from blowing.  
15 seconds. I can’t concentrate. I won’t look back at Barton, kneeling beside Nat.  
There it is. The blue wire. I pull the blades from my staff and cut it. The console buzzes for a moment, before the timer shuts off.  
“The bomb isn’t going off Melevna,” I stand. Steve stops fighting with him. “Surrender.”  
Melevna smiles, “You’ll have to kill me first.”  
“Surrender,” I say again.  
Melevna kicks my staff away. I curse as it rolls away, and punch him in the jaw. He grabs my fist and flips me over onto my back. Stars explode before my eyes as Melevna pins me.  
Steve starts to intervene, but I glare at him, and he backs away.  
“Your mother screamed, just like Natasha did,” Melevna whispers.  
I push Melevna away and leap up. “You won’t hurt anyone ever again.”  
Melevna smiles. But before he can move, I grab my staff from where it dropped, and twist it apart into the two swords, stopping one right beside his throat.  
“Don’t move,” I growl.  
Melevna pulls a knife from his belt. I close my eyes. Steve shouts from somewhere nearby.  
I stab Melevna in what I hope isn’t his throat.. As I move, I open my eyes, a moment before his knife hits my shoulder.  
Melevna gasps and drops to the ground. My blade hit his shoulder, just like his hit mine. I can’t feel it.  
I kneel beside him.  
He says, “Just kill me.”  
“You’re going away for the rest of your life,” I growl, “Your little game? It’s over.”  
I hear the faint sound of a chopper and look up.  
“I guess SHIELD finally noticed our predicament,” Tony remarks, pulling off his helmet.  
No one musters the will to laugh.  
The chopper gets closer, and Steve hauls Melevna up, ordering him to put his hands behind his back. My hair is blown back, as a familiar figure leaps down from the chopper, just as it touches down.  
Nick Fury strides towards us, looking truly, dare I say it, furious.  
“What have you done this time?” he growls, exasperated.


	25. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave kudos!

Does Fury pay any attention to the fact that we saved NYC, again? Nope.  
“Calm down, man,” I say.  
Fury gives me such a glare that I almost choke on my coffee.  
Yes coffee. I usually don’t drink the stuff, but now seems like a fine time. I down the rest.  
“A young agent was injured in the chaos, and a lot of civilians were killed,” Fury says.  
“The city wasn’t destroyed,” Stark counters.  
Fury turns on the TV in the corner. The news is rolling, showing footage of the attack, and rescue and relief.  
“He would have done it anyway,” I say.  
Fury turns towards me, “How can we trust you? We don’t know what Melevna did to you.”  
“I helped bring him in, I’m an agent, you can trust me,” I counter.  
“We’ll bring someone in to evaluate you,” Fury glares at me, “Until then, hand over your staff.”  
I look over at Steve. He inclines his head. I sigh, and hand it over.  
“What about Nat?” I ask.  
Stark stands, “Banner’s stabilizing her. JARVIS, are SHIELD doctors on their way?”  
“Yes sir,” the formless AI responds.  
It’s hours, so long, before anyone comes out to tell us something.  
I race right past the nurse, and into the room. Nat is laying on a bed, still asleep. There are so many wires.  
“Will she be all right?” I ask Banner.  
He smiles, just a bit, “Yes.”


	26. Nat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally a Nat chapter!!!!  
> Please leave kudos.

I’m floating in warm water. The sun above casts beams of light across my eyes. I blink against it, and lose my balance in the water, fall through.  
I can hear a monotone beep first. A heart monitor. It speeds up, just a bit, as I open my eyes.  
Someone intakes a soft breath. I turn my head slightly. Alex is there.  
“What no joke to crack for me?” I ask.  
“You’ve been asleep for so long,” she says, voice cracking, and hugs me. I pat her arm awkwardly.  
“I hurt all over,” I groan.  
This gets her to smirk, “You were shot three times.”  
“I’m better now,” I start to get up.  
Alex stops me. “Stitches.”  
I sigh and roll my eyes.  
It’s a long road, I know that. I’ve had to recover before. I hate not being able to go out and do things.  
About a week later, I’m out of bed. Yes, I’m not better yet, but I can walk around. It’s really aggravating, that the team keeps asking me if I’m okay, and helping me do things. I’m definitely not planning on getting shot again any time soon.  
I call Fury.  
“I had heard you were getting better,” he says gruffly.  
“I need to talk to you about Alex,” I say.  
She’s not in her room when I go in. but for some reason, the window is open.  
I stick my head out, and see Alex, sitting on the ledge outside, legs dangling off.  
“What are you doing?” I ask.  
She holds up her phone, “It’s easier to hack into the Starbucks from here. No JARVIS telling me I’m not authorized to hack things.”  
I put my hands on my hips, “You can’t hack things anymore Alex.”  
She rolls her eyes, and groans dramatically.  
“Want to spar?” I ask.  
She glares at me, “You can’t.”  
“Go easy on me.”  
“Nat, you were shot a week ago. We’re not sparring.”  
“I’ll spar with you,” says a voice from the doorway.  
We turn, and Steve is there.  
Alex looks like she wants to say no, but she doesn’t, “Fine,” she grumbles, and stands.  
“Please don’t fall off the roof,” Steve says, as Alex comes back in.  
“I’ll try not to,” she sighs.  
I wish I would spar with them, but I can’t. Not yet. When I get better I’ll definitely kick Alex’s butt.  
In the sparring room, Alex and Steve spar.  
“Try not to get beat up to bad,” I clap her on the back.  
“You were really brave when he attacked New York,” I shout.  
Alex rolls under Steve’s punch, “What are you buttering me up for?”  
“I talked to Fury,” I say.  
“Ooh, what’s he gonna do this time? Does he think I’m going to kill you all in my sleep?”  
Steve laughs at this, and Alex takes the opportunity to kick him back.  
“You saved a lot of lives, Alex,” I sigh.  
“Yes, I know.”  
Steve pushes Alex back, and pins her. She smirks, and he helps her up.  
“Well, you are enhanced too,” she says.  
“Excuses.”  
Banner stops by the door, “We’re ready for you, Nat.”  
“what are you planning?” Alex glares at me.  
“You’ll see,” I lead the way out the door.


	27. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! The chapter we've all been waiting for!!!!!!  
> Comment down below if you predicted this.  
> Also, for the next six days, until Endgame releases, I will be posting a new little chapter for you guys on my Thanos the Snowman story! Please check that out! I already posted one yesterday!

“Is it someone’s birthday?” I ask.  
Nat doesn’t respond.  
“Tell me!” I whine, and flop on the ground.  
“Get up,” Steve says from behind me.  
I roll my eyes and stand. Nat leads the way downstairs, and into the kitchen.  
Waiting there is Fury, and the rest of the Avengers. They’re smiling.  
“What is this?” I ask.  
“I asked Fury, and the rest of the Avengers agreed. I mean only if you want to.”  
“Want to what?”  
“Become an Avenger,” Fury says.  
“What?” This can’t be happening.  
“We want you to be part of the team, Alex,” Barton says.  
“I’m sorry, am I hallucinating right now?” I ask, “Has the world been taken over by aliens and they’re mind controlling us, and cruelly making me live a fantasy.”  
Everyone stares at me.  
Steve shrugs, “Weirder things have happened.”  
“This is real,” Nat assures me.  
“Why would you want me to be an Avenger?” I ask, plopping down in a chair.  
Fury comes forward, “You’ve proved yourself, and so much more since the Battle of New York. You fit the bill for a new Avenger. There’s no tell when this world will need protection again.”  
Nat comes up behind him. She holding a little box, which she hands to me.  
I look up at her, and then open it.  
Inside, nestled in tissue paper, is a metal stick sort of thing.  
“What is this?” I ask.  
“A new staff,” Nat says. “It can retract to this size when you’re not using it, and it has a lot more function than the old one.”  
“I designed it,” Stark pipes up.  
I pick the staff up, and it goes out to its full length. On the center, is a small Avengers logo. I smile.

“So, what will my name be?” I ask.  
Nat shrugs, “You’ll have to figure it out.”  
We’re sitting on the ledge outside my room. I’ve been an Avenger for about a few weeks now. The world doesn’t know yet. They will soon.  
“I need a costume of some sort,” I say.  
“Yeah, yeah,” Nat waves me off, “Just use your SHIELD uniform.”  
I flop down, “But that’s boring!”  
“We’ll figure it all out soon,” she smiles.  
Barton sticks his head out the window, “Fury needs you, downstairs.”  
“Yeah, yeah, Hot Guy, in a minute,” I say.  
Barton winces, “Please don’t call me that.”  
“It’s funny,” I shrug.


	28. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I forgot. Get over it.  
> Okay so this is the second to last chapter of Avenger's Apprentice!!! I want to thank everyone who reads this story, and give a special shout-out to everyone who has voted! Check them out, I've read some of their stories and they were awesome!!  
> I will also be posting the first chapter of the new story tomorrow as a special treat!!!!! Comment on what you think the title will be!

We’re in a bathroom. To expand on this, Nat and I are in a bathroom. In France. Chasing a group of terrorists.  
“You almost done with that tracker?” I ask, standing by the door. Just in case anyone comes in.  
“Yeah,” Nat says.  
Suddenly, I hear a shout, and a heavy body thuds against the door.  
“Merde!” I cry, and push a chair under the door handle. It’s already locked, but, you can never be too careful.  
“Did you just say shit in French,” Nat asks.  
“Yeah, I thought it would make sense to swear in the native language of the country we’re in,” I shrug.  
“Where did you figure that out?” Nat sighs.  
I smile, while looking around for a way out of here, “Google translate. Since you wouldn’t tell me how to say shit in any language other than English, I was forced to ask Google.”  
“Vents,” Nat says.  
I turn towards her, confused, “What?”  
“Find a vent, to get out of here through.”  
“Yeah, right.”  
There’s one over the sinks. I climb into the sink and go up into a handstand. I can stay in the air for a surprisingly long time. I kick the vent until the cover goes flying off. More people are shouting outside.  
“Got it open, you almost done?” I ask.  
Nat growls, “Well the tracker would work better if I could actually get it on one of their vehicles.”  
“We’ll figure something out,” I say.  
Nat tucks the tracker into her pocket and puts everything back into her bag.  
“You know I have a screwdriver, right?”  
“You could have mentioned that,” I say as I hoist myself up into the vent. Another loud crash echoes from outside.; Nat follows, grabbing the cover, and puts it back on, just as the door gives way.  
“Which way?” I whisper.  
“How about we go right,” Nat says.  
After a few minutes of crawling, we find an empty room below, and drop down into it to change into our uniforms. Alarms are blaring now.  
I stop, after pulling on my uniform, something is different. On each of the shoulder is an emblem. A red bird.  
“What is this?” I ask.  
“I thought of a name for you,” Nat says, as she puts on her hip holsters, “Sparrow. Melevna didn’t think you could do anything, because you were just a girl, just a sparrow. But you stopped him and save New York.”  
I roll my eyes, “Now enough of the sappiness. Let’s go kick some butt!”


	29. Epilogue (Alex)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh So many people to thank!!!! So this story is in no small part here because of all the people who have read this shit, and voted, and are still here. Thank you for putting up with me and my terrible writing.  
> Also check out the new story!! It's called The New Avenger!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Relax," I say into the comms, "No one will know who I am."

Sparrow has been on the news non-stop since I got back from France. Everyone knows who she is now, and that she's an Avenger.

"Just be careful," Tony says.

Tony's on comms today, because Nat and Steve are on a mission, hunting someone called the 'Winter Soldier.'

I'm walking around New York. Now I have to wear sunglasses and hats a lot so no one knows who I am.

It works better than you would think it would.

"Calm down," I growl.

"You need to be cautious," it's Clint now.

"Since when were you on comms," I ask.

Clint laughs, "I'm pretty much always on comms. I always have this stupid plastic thing in my ear."

I can just picture Tony's signature half-eye roll at that.

"Honestly, I'll be fine," I say, "I-"

Suddenly, there's a flash of light from up ahead.

"What?" Tony asks, "What is it?"

"I just saw something," I say, and break into a jog, "I'm going to check it out."

"Be careful," Clint warns.

"Yeah, I will."

I run around the corner, just as there is another burst of light.

I see a woman, with long blond hair at the end of the alley.

"Hey!" I shout, and she turns for a second, before grabbing top of the wall that blocks the alley, and leaps over it.

"What's happening?" Clint asks.

"There's a woman, I'm in pursuit!" I grab the top of the wall and swing over.

She's gone.

Roofs.

I look up and see a beam of light.

"Typical," I mutter, and grab the pipe on the building, and swing myself up.

"What?" Clint asks.

"Nothing," I mutter.

I climb onto the roof and see the woman.

She turns towards me, and holds up her hand, a ball of light in it.

"Hold your horses, lady," I roll my eyes.

"Are you Kree?" she asks.

"What's Kree?"

"Good," she says, "You're not." She's definitely American. At least originally. With that outfit, she doesn't look like she's from Earth.

"You're not from around here, are you?" I sigh.

"What do you mean?" she asks.

I walk towards her. She throws her ball of light at me, and I duck.

"Jesus," I gasp, "What's wrong with you?"

She smirks, "You're not leaving, are you?"

"I'm sorry, but it's sorta my job to bring you in."

"Bring me in where?" she asks.

"Back to the Avenger's headquarters," I tap on my wrist, "I don't have a lot of time."

"What happening?" Tony is on the comms.

"Sort of in the middle of something," I growl.

"Who are you talking to?" the woman asks, "And who's the Avengers?"

"You ever heard of SHIELD?" I ask.

She perks up at that, "Do you know Nick Fury?"

"Yeah, but-"

"I need to talk to him."

"Could you at least tell me your name," I roll my eyes.

She steps towards me, and I pull out my staff.

"Now who needs to calm down," she smirks, "I'm Carol Danvers."

I hesitantly shake her arm, and a shock runs up my hand.

"So, what's with the light blasts?" I ask.

"They're photon blasts, and they just come from my arms. It's a long story," Carol smiles.

The comm crackles in my ear, "Alex," Clint says, "We have a problem."

"Take me to see Fury," Carol says.

"What?" I ask Clint.

Suddenly Nat's on comms, "It's SHIELD," she says grimly, "SHIELD's fallen."

"I have to go."


End file.
